710
Opinion of Thomas, J.
prosecution knowingly failed to turn over exculpatory evidence as required by Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963)." App. 180 (emphasis added). The State, then, could have been denying only that the prosecution knowingly failed to turn over the evidence (there is, incidentally, very little evidence in the record tending to show that any prosecutor had actual knowledge of Huff's payment to Farr). Or, the State could have been denying only that it had failed to turn over evidence in violation of Brady, i. e., that any evidence the prosecution did not turn over was not material (a position advanced by the State throughout the federal habeas process), see Strickler, supra, at 281 ("[S]trictly speaking, there is never a real 'Brady violation' unless the nondis-closure was so serious that there is a reasonable probability that the suppressed evidence would have produced a different verdict"). Either way, Strickler does not clearly control, and the Court's reliance on it is less than compelling.
Because of the Court's disposition of Banks' Farr Brady claim, it does not address his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, concluding that "any relief he could obtain on that claim would be cumulative." Ante, at 689, n. 10. As I would affirm the Court of Appeals on the Farr Brady claim, I briefly discuss this ineffective-assistance claim. Although I find the Farr Brady claim a close call, I do not find this to be so as to the ineffective-assistance claim. Banks comes nowhere close to satisfying the prejudice prong of Strickland v. Washington, supra. The conclusory and uncorrobo-rated claims of some level of physical abuse, the allegations that a bad skin condition negatively affected his childhood development, the evidence that he was a slow learner and possessed a willingness to please others, and the claim that Banks' brother-in-law was responsible for his own pistol-whipping and receipt of a death threat, are so unpersuasive that there is no reasonable probability that the jury would have come to the opposite conclusion with respect to the fu-
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