Cite as: 539 U. S. 510 (2003)
Scalia, J., dissenting
ante, at 522. There was nothing in Strickland, or in any of our "clearly established" precedents at the time of the Virginia Supreme Court's decision, to support Williams' statement that trial counsel had an "obligation to conduct a thorough investigation of the defendant's background," 529 U. S., at 396. That is why the citation supporting the statement is not one of our opinions, but rather standards promulgated by the American Bar Association, ibid. (citing 1 ABA Standards for Criminal Justice 4-4.1, commentary, p. 4-55 (2d ed. 1980)). Insofar as this Court's cases were concerned, Burger v. Kemp, 483 U. S. 776, 794 (1987), had rejected an ineffective-assistance claim even though acknowledging that trial counsel "could well have made a more thorough investigation than he did." And Strickland had eschewed the imposition of such "rules" on counsel, 466 U. S., at 688-689, specifically stating that the very ABA standards upon which Williams later relied "are guides to determining what is reasonable, but they are only guides." 466 U. S., at 688 (emphasis added). Williams did make new law—law that was not "clearly established" at the time of the Maryland Court of Appeals' decision.
But even if the Court were correct in its characterization of Williams, that still cannot justify its decision to ignore an Act of Congress. Whether Williams "made new law" or not, what Williams held was not clearly established Supreme Court precedent as of the time of the state court's decision, and cannot be used to find fault in the state-court opinion. Section 2254(d)(1) means what it says, and the Court simply defies the congressionally imposed limits on federal habeas review.
2
The Court concludes that Strickland was applied unreasonably (and § 2254(d)(1) thereby satisfied) because the Maryland Court of Appeals' conclusion that trial counsel adequately investigated Wiggins' background, see Wiggins, 352 Md., at 610, 724 A. 2d, at 16, was unreasonable. That assess-
543
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