Cite as: 538 U. S. 63 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
Second, "[u]nder the 'unreasonable application' clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from this Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case." Id., at 413. The "unreasonable application" clause requires the state court decision to be more than incorrect or erroneous. Id., at 410, 412. The state court's application of clearly established law must be objectively unreasonable. Id., at 409.
The Ninth Circuit made an initial error in its "unreasonable application" analysis. In Van Tran v. Lindsey, 212 F. 3d, at 1152-1154, the Ninth Circuit defined "objectively unreasonable" to mean "clear error." These two standards, however, are not the same. The gloss of clear error fails to give proper deference to state courts by conflating error (even clear error) with unreasonableness. See Williams v. Taylor, supra, at 410; Bell v. Cone, 535 U. S., at 699.
It is not enough that a federal habeas court, in its "independent review of the legal question," is left with a " 'firm conviction' " that the state court was " 'erroneous.' " 270 F. 3d, at 753 (quoting Van Tran v. Lindsey, supra, at 1153-1154). We have held precisely the opposite: "Under § 2254(d)(1)'s 'unreasonable application' clause, then, a federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that
of two different Kmart stores occurring two weeks apart were two distinct crimes.
Justice Souter, relying on Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660 (1962), also argues that in this case, it is "unrealistic" to think that a sentence of 50 years to life for Andrade is not equivalent to life in prison without parole. Post, at 79. This argument, however, misses the point. Based on our precedents, the state court decision was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, our clearly established law. Moreover, Justice Souter's position would treat a sentence of life without parole for the 77-year-old person convicted of murder as equivalent to a sentence of life with the possibility of parole in 10 years for the same person convicted of the same crime. Two different sentences do not become materially indistinguishable based solely upon the age of the persons sentenced.
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