8
Per Curiam
"(2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding."
The jury-coercion claim in respondent's habeas petition is the same claim rejected on the merits in his direct appeal to the state appellate court, and the Ninth Circuit correctly recognized that § 2254(d) was therefore applicable. It held that respondent had established that the decision of the Court of Appeal was contrary to established federal law for two, and possibly three, reasons. We think none of them correct.
First, the Ninth Circuit observed that the state court "failed to cite . . . any federal law, much less the controlling Supreme Court precedents." 291 F. 3d, at 578. If this meant to suggest that such citation was required, it was in error. A state-court decision is "contrary to" our clearly established precedents if it "applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in our cases" or if it "confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of this Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different from our precedent." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 362, 405-406 (2000). Avoiding these pitfalls does not require citation of our cases—indeed, it does not even require awareness of our cases, so long as neither the reasoning nor the result of the state-court decision contradicts them. The Ninth Circuit's disapproval of the Court of Appeal's failure to cite this Court's cases is especially puzzling since the state court cited instead decisions from the California Supreme Court that impose even greater restrictions for the avoidance of potentially coercive jury instructions. Compare People v. Gainer, supra, at 852, 566 P. 2d, at 1006, with Allen v. United States, supra, at 501.
Second, the Ninth Circuit charged that the Court of Appeal "failed to apply the totality of the circumstances test as required by Lowenfield [v. Phelps, 484 U. S. 231 (1988)]." That was so, the Ninth Circuit concluded, because it "simply mentioned three particular incidents in its analysis," "failed
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