Cite as: 539 U. S. 510 (2003)
Scalia, J., dissenting
id., at 32 (Wiggins interrupting the judge's statement of the verdict to say: " 'He can't tell me I did it. I'm going to go out. . . . I didn't do it. He can't tell me I did it' "); id., at 56 (Wiggins interrupting the prosecutor's opening argument to say: " 'I'm not going to take that because I didn't kill that lady. I'm not going to sit there and take that' ").
But even indulging, for the sake of argument, the Court's belief that Selvog's report "may" have been admissible, ante, at 536, the Court's prejudice discussion simply assumes without analysis that the sentencing jury would have believed the report's hearsay accounts of Wiggins' statements. Ante, at 536-537. Yet that same jury would have learned during the guilt phase of the trial that Wiggins is a proven liar, see App. 179-180, and Wiggins would not have aided his credibility with the jury by avoiding the witness stand and funneling his story through a social worker. I doubt very much that Wiggins' jury would have shared the Court's uncritical and wholesale acceptance of these hearsay claims.
* * *
Today's decision is extraordinary—even for our " 'deathis-different' " jurisprudence. See Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U. S. 154, 185 (1994) (Scalia, J., dissenting). It fails to give effect to § 2254(e)(1)'s requirement that state-court factual determinations be presumed correct, and disbelieves the sworn testimony of a member of the bar while treating hearsay accounts of statements of a convicted murderer as established fact. I dissent.
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