1 (Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2012

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.


## SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

JOHNSON, ACTING WARDEN v . WILLIAMS

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE NINTH CIRCUIT

No. 11–465. Argued October 3, 2012—Decided February 20, 2013

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA)

provides that a federal habeas court may not grant relief to a state prisoner whose claim has already been “adjudicated on the merits in State court,” 28 U. S. C. §2254(d), unless the claim’s adjudication re

sulted in a decision that was “con trary to, or involved an unreasona

ble application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by [this] Court,” §2254(d)(1), or “based on an unreasonable determina

tion of the facts in light of the ev idence presented in the State court proceeding,” §2254(d)(2).

A California jury convicted re spondent Williams of first-degree murder. On direct appeal to the California Court of Appeal, she claimed that the trial court’s ques tioning and dismissal of a juror during deliberations violated both the Sixth Amendment and Cali

fornia law. In holding that the ju ror had been properly dismissed for bias, the California Court of Appeal quoted the definition of “impar

tiality” from United States v. Wood , 299 U. S. 123, 145–146, but it did not expressly acknowledge that it was deciding a Sixth Amendment issue. The State Supr eme Court remanded for further consideration in light of its intervening Cleveland decision, which held that a trial court abused its discretion by dismissing for failure to deliberate a ju

ror who appeared to disagree with th e rest of the jury about the evi

dence. Reaffirming its prior decisi on on remand, the State Court of Appeal discussed Cleveland , again quoted Wood , and failed to ex

pressly acknowledge that Williams had raised a federal claim.

When Williams later sought federal habeas relief, the District Court applied §2254’s deferential standard of review for claims adju

dicated on the merits and denied relief. But the Ninth Circuit con

cluded that the State Court of A ppeal had not considered Williams ’2 JOHNSON v. WILLIAMS

Syllabus

Sixth Amendment claim. The co urt then reviewed that claim de novo and held that the questioning and di smissal of the juror violated the
Sixth Amendment.

Held : 1. For purposes of §2254(d), when a state court rules against a de

fendant in an opinion that rejects some of the defendant’s claims but does not expressly address a federal claim, a federal habeas court must presume, subject to rebuttal, that the federal claim was adjudi

cated on the merits. Pp. 7–13. (a) This conclusion follows logically from Harrington v. Richter

, 562 U. S. ___. There, the Court he ld that when a st ate court issues an order that summarily rejects without discussion all the claims raised by a defendant, including a federal claim that the defendant subsequently presses in federal habeas, the federal habeas court must presume that the federal clai m was adjudicated on the merits. Though Richter concerned a state-court order that did not address

any of the defendant’s claims, there is no sound reason not to apply its presumption when a state-court opinion addresses some but not
all of those claims. Federal habeas courts should not assume that any unaddressed federal claim was si mply overlooked because state courts do not uniformly discuss separately every claim referenced by a defendant. In fact, they frequently take a different course. They may view a line of state preceden t as fully incorporating a related federal constitutional right, may no t regard a fleeting reference to a provision of the Federal Constituti on or federal precedent as suffi

cient to raise a federal claim, or may simply regard a claim as too in

substantial to merit discussion. Pp. 7

− 10. (b) Petitioner’s argument for an irrebuttable presumption goes too far. Certainly, if a state standard subsumes the federal standard, the federal claim may be regarded as having been adjudicated on the
merits. See Early v. Packer , 537 U. S. 3, 8. But where, e.g., the state standard is less protective or the federal precedent was mentioned in passing, the presumption may be rebutted—either by a habeas peti

tioner (to show that the federal court should consider the claim de

novo ) or by the State (to show that the federal claim should be re

garded as procedurally defaulted). See Coleman v. Thompson , 501
U. S. 722, 739. An irrebuttable presumption that state courts never
overlook federal claims would someti mes be wrong. It would also im

properly excise §2254(d)’s on-the-merits requirement, for a claim that is rejected as a result of sheer inadvertence has not been evaluated on the merits. The experience of the lower federal courts shows that allowing federal habeas petitioners to rebut the presumption will not prompt an unduly burdensome flood of litigation. Pp. 10

− 13.

2. Applying the rebuttable presumption of merits adjudication3 Cite as: 568 U. S. ____ (2013)

Syllabus

here, the Ninth Circuit erred by fi nding that the State Court of Ap

peal overlooked Williams’ Sixth Amendment claim. Several facts
lead to that conclusion. Most im portant is that the court discussed
Cleveland , a State Supreme Court case that in turn examined three Federal Court of Appeals cases co ncerning the Sixth Amendment im

plications of discharging holdout jurors. Though Cleveland refused to follow those cases, the views of the federal courts of appeals do not bind a State Supreme Court when it decides a federal constitutional question. Regardless of whether a California court would consider
Williams’ state-law and Sixth Amendm ent claims to be coextensive, their similarity makes it unlikely that the State Court of Appeal de

cided one while overlooking the othe r. The State Court of Appeal’s quotation of Wood, supra, at 145

− 146, further confirms that it was well aware that the juror’s question ing and dismissal implicated fed

eral law. Williams’ litigation strate gy also supports this result. She treated her state and federal claims as interchangeable, so it is not surprising that the state courts di d as well. Notably, Williams nei

ther petitioned the State Court of Appeal for rehearing nor argued in subsequent state and federal proc eedings that the state court had failed to adjudicate her Sixth Amendment claim on the merits. Pp. 13

− 16.

646 F. 3d 626, reversed and remanded.

A LITO

, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which R OBERTS

, C. J.,
and K ENNEDY , T HOMAS , G INSBURG , B REYER , S OTOMAYOR

, and K AGAN

, JJ., joined. S CALIA

, J., filed an opinion conc urring in the judgment._________________

_________________ 1 Cite as: 568 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash

ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.


## SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 11–465

DEBORAH K. JOHNSON, ACTING WARDEN, PETITIONER v. TARA SHENEVA WILLIAMS

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

[February 20, 2013]

J USTICE A LITO delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) restricts the circumstances under which a federal habeas court may grant relief to a state prisoner whose claim has already been “adjudicated on the merits in State court.” 28 U. S. C. §2254(d). Specifically, if a claim has been “adjudicated on the merits in State court,” a federal habeas court may not grant relief unless “the adjudication of the claim—

“(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly estab

lished Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or “(2) resulted in a decision that was based on an un

reasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.”
Ibid.

Because the requirements of §2254(d) are difficult to meet, it is important whether a federal claim was “adjudi

cated on the merits in State court,” and this case requires us to ascertain the meaning of the adjudication-on-the2 JOHNSON v. WILLIAMS

Opinion of the Court

merits requirement. This issue arises when a defendant convicted in state court attempts to raise a federal claim, either on direct appeal or in a collateral state proceeding, and a state court rules against the defendant and issues an opinion that addresses some issues but does not ex

pressly address the federal claim in question. If this
defendant then raises the same claim in a federal habeas proceeding, should the federal court regard the claim as having been adjudicated on the merits by the state court and apply deference under §2254(d)? Or may the federal court assume that the state court simply overlooked the federal claim and proceed to adjudicate the claim de novo

, the course taken by the Court of Appeals in the case at
hand? We believe that the answer to this question follows logically from our decision in Harrington v. Richter , 562
U. S. ___ (2011). In that case, we held that, when a state court issues an order that summarily rejects without
discussion all the claims raised by a defendant, including a federal claim that the defendant subsequently presses in a federal habeas proceeding, the federal habeas court must presume (subject to rebuttal) that the federal claim was adjudicated on the merits. We see no reason why this same rule should not apply when the state court addresses some of the claims raised by a defendant but not a claim that is later raised in a federal habeas proceeding. Applying this rule in the present case, we hold that the federal claim at issue here (a Sixth Amendment jury trial claim) must be presumed to have been adjudicated on the merits by the California courts, that this presumption was not adequately rebutted, that the restrictive standard of review set out in §2254(d)(2) consequently applies, and that under that standard respondent is not entitled to habeas relief. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.3 Cite as: 568 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court

I
A
In October 1993, respondent Tara Williams took two
of her friends for a drive in southern California with the objective of committing a robbery. They stopped at a liquor store in Long Beach, and while Williams waited in the getaway car, her friends stole money from the cash register and fatally shot the store’s owner. Williams then drove one of her friends away, and the other fled on foot. Williams avoided capture for five years but was ultimately apprehended and charged with first-degree murder. At trial, Williams admitted that she had served as the getaway driver but claimed that she did not know that her friends were going to rob the liquor store at the particular time in question. Instead, she contended that the three friends had agreed only that they would “case” the store and would possibly return later that evening to rob it. The State countered that, regardless of whether Williams knew precisely when and where the robbery was to take place, she had agreed to help commit a robbery and that this was sufficient to provide the predicate for felony
murder under California law. After deliberating for about three hours, the jury fore

man sent the judge two notes. The first note asked the following question:
“ ‘Is it legally permissible fo r a juror to interpret . . . the jury instructions to mean that the conspiracy should involve a plan to commit a specific robbery ra

ther than a general plan to commit robberies in the
future?’ ” Tr. 1247.
The second note stated: “I wish to inform you that we have one juror who . . . has expressed an intention to disregard the law . . . and . . . has expressed concer n relative to the severity of the charge (first degree murder).” Id. , at 1246.4 JOHNSON v. WILLIAMS

Opinion of the Court

The judge told the jury that the answer to the question in
the first note was “no.” Id., at 1249. Then, over Williams’ objection, the judge briefly questioned the foreman outside the presence of the rest of the jury about the second note. The foreman said that he thought the judge’s answer to the first note might resolve the problem, and the judge instructed the jury to resume its deliberations. The next morning, once again over Williams’ objection, the judge decided to inquire further about the foreman’s second note. On questioning by the judge and lawyers for both parties, the foreman testified that Juror 6 had brought up past instances of jury nullification. The fore

man also expressed doubt about whether Juror 6 was willing to apply the felony-murder rule. The trial judge then ordered questioning of Juror 6, who first denied and then admitted bringing up instances of nullification.
Juror 6 also testified that this was a serious case and that he would vote to convict only if he was “very convinced . . . beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id., at 1280. He later clari

fied that in his view “convinced beyond a reasonable doubt” and “very convinced be yond a reasonable doubt” meant the same thing. Id., at 1281. After taking testimony from the remaining jurors, who corroborated theforeman’s testimony to varying degrees, the trial judge dismissed Juror 6 for bias. With an alternate juror in place, the jury convicted Williams of first-degree murder.

B
On appeal to the California Court of Appeal, Williams argued, among other things, that the discharge of Juror 6
violated both the Sixth Amendment and the California Penal Code, which allows a California trial judge to dis

miss a juror who “upon . . . good cause shown to the court is found to be unable to perform his or her duty.” Cal. Penal Code Ann. §1089 (West 2004). Although Williams’ brief challenged the questioni ng and dismissal of Juror 65 Cite as: 568 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court

on both state and federal grounds, it did not clearly distin

guish between these two lines of authority. In a written opinion affirming Williams’ conviction, the California Court of Appeal devoted several pages to discussing the propriety of the trial judge’s decision to dis

miss the juror. People v. Taylor , No. B137365 (Mar. 27, 2001). The court held that Juror 6 had been properly dismissed for bias and quoted th is Court’s definition of “impartiality” in United States v. Wood , 299 U. S. 123, 145–146 (1936). But despite its extended discussion of Juror 6’s dismissal and the que stioning that preceded it, the California Court of Appeal never expressly acknowl

edged that it was deciding a Sixth Amendment issue. Williams petitioned the California Supreme Court for review, and while her petition was pending, that court
decided People v. Cleveland , 25 Cal. 4th 466, 21 P. 3d 1225 (2001), which held that a trial court had abused its discre

tion by dismissing for failure to deliberate a juror who appeared to disagree with the rest of the jury about the evidence. The California Supreme Court granted Wil

liams’ petition for review and remanded her case for fur

ther consideration in light of this intervening authority. People v. Taylor , No. S097387 (July 11, 2001). On remand, the California Court of Appeal issued a revised opinion holding that the trial court had not abused its discretion by questioning the jury and dismissing Juror

6. Williams argued that Juror 6—like the holdout juror in
Cleveland —was dismissed because he was uncooperative with other jurors who did not share his view of the evi

dence. But the California Court of Appeal disagreed, explaining that Williams’ argu ment “not only misstate[d] the evidence,” but also “ignore[d] the trial court’s explana

tion that it was discharging Juror No. 6 because he had shown himself to be biased, not because he was failing to deliberate or engaging in juror nullification.” People v. Taylor , No. B137365 (Jan. 18, 2002), App. to Pet. for Cert.6 JOHNSON v. WILLIAMS

Opinion of the Court

105a. As in its earlier opinion, the California Court of Appeal quoted our definition of juror bias in Wood , but the court did not expressly acknowledge that Williams had
invoked a federal basis for he r argument. Despite thatomission, however, Williams did not seek rehearing or otherwise suggest that the court had overlooked her federal claim. Instead, she filed another petition for review in the California Supreme Court, but this time that court
denied relief in a one-sentence order. People v. Taylor , No. S104661 (Apr. 10, 2002), App. to Pet. for Cert. 85a. Williams sought but failed to obtain relief through state habeas proceedings, and she then filed a federal habeas petition under 28 U. S. C. §2254. The District Court ap

plied AEDPA’s deferential stand ard of review for claims previously adjudicated on the merits and denied relief.
Williams v. Mitchell , No. 03–2691 (CD Cal., May 30, 2007), App. to Pet. for Cert. 57a. In so holding, the Dis

trict Court adopted a Magistrate Judge’s finding that the evidence “amply support[ed] the trial judge’s determina

tion that good cause existed fo r the discharge of Juror 6.”
Williams v. Mitchell , No. 03–2691 (CD Cal., Mar. 19, 2007), id., at 70a. The Ninth Circuit reversed. Unlike the District Court, the Ninth Circuit declined to apply the deferential stand

ard of review contained in §2254(d). The Ninth Circuit took this approach because it thought it “obvious” that the State Court of Appeal had “o verlooked or disregarded”
Williams’ Sixth Amendment claim. 1 Williams v. Cavazos

, 646 F. 3d 626, 639 (2011). The Ninth Circuit reasoned
that Cleveland , the State Supreme Court decision on

——————

1 Consistent with our decision in Ylst v. Nunnemaker , 501 U. S. 797, 806 (1991), the Ninth Circuit “look[ed] through” the California Supreme Court’s summary denial of Williams’ petition for review and examined the California Court of Appeal’s opin ion, the last reasoned state-court
decision to address Juror 6’s dismissal. Williams v. Cavazos , 646 F. 3d 626, 635 (2011).7 Cite as: 568 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court

which the State Court of Appeal had relied, “was not a constitutional decision,” 646 F. 3d, at 640, and the Ninth Circuit attributed no significance to the state court’s cita

tion of our decision in Wood . Reviewing Williams’ Sixth
Amendment claim de novo , the Ninth Circuit applied its own precedent and held that the questioning and dismis

sal of Juror 6 violated the Sixth Amendment. 646 F. 3d, at 646–647. We granted the warden’s petition for a writ of certiorari, 565 U. S. ___ (2012), in order to decide whether the Ninth Circuit erred by refusing to afford AEDPA
deference to the California Co urt of Appeal’s decision.

II
A
As noted above, AEDPA sharply limits the circum

stances in which a federal court may issue a writ of habeas corpus to a state prisoner whose claim was “adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings.” 28 U. S. C. §2254(d). In Richter , 562 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 10), we held that §2254(d) “does not require a state court to give
reasons before its decision can be deemed to have been ‘adjudicated on the merits.’ ” Rather, we explained, “[w]hen a federal claim has been presented to a state court and the state court has denied relief, it may be presumed that the state court adjudicated the claim on the merits in the absence of any indication or state-law procedural principles to the contrary.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 9). Our reasoning in Richter points clearly to the answer to the question presented in the case at hand. Although
Richter itself concerned a state-court order that did not
address any of the defendant’s claims, we see no reason why the Richter presumption should not also apply when a state-court opinion addresses some but not all of a defend

ant’s claims. There would be a reason for drawing a dis

tinction between these two situations if opinions issued by state appellate courts always separately addressed every8 JOHNSON v. WILLIAMS

Opinion of the Court

single claim that is mentioned in a defendant’s papers. If there were such a uniform practice, then federal habeas courts could assume that any unaddressed federal claim was simply overlooked. No such assumption is warranted, however, because it is not the uniform practice of busy state courts to discuss separately every single claim to which a defendant makes even a passing reference. On the contrary, there are several situations in which state courts frequently take a
different course. First, there are circumstances in which a line of state precedent is viewed as fully incorporating a related federal constitutional right. In California, for example, the state constitutional right to be present at trial “ ‘is generally
coextensive with’ ” the protections of the Federal Constitu

tion. People v. Butler , 46 Cal. 4th 847, 861, 209 P. 3d 596, 606 (2009); see also, e.g., Commonwealth v. Prunty , 462 Mass. 295, 305, n. 14, 968 N. E. 2d 361, 371, n. 14 (2012) (standard for racial discrimination in juror selection “ ‘is the same under the Federal Constitution and the [Massa

chusetts] Declaration of Rights’ ”); State v. Krause , 817
N. W. 2d 136, 144 (Minn. 2012) (“ ‘The due process protec

tion provided under the Minnesota Constitution is identi

cal to the due proces[s] guaranteed under the Constitution
of the United States’ ”); State v. Engelhardt , 280 Kan. 113, 122, 119 P. 3d 1148, 1158 (2005) (observing that a Kansas statute is “analytically and functionally identical to the requirements under the Confrontation Clause and the Due Process Clause of the federal Constitution”). In this situa

tion, a state appellate court may regard its discussion of the state precedent as sufficient to cover a claim based on the related federal right. Second, a state court may no t regard a fleeting reference to a provision of the Federal Constitution or federal prece

dent as sufficient to raise a separate federal claim. Federal courts of appeals refuse to take cognizance of arguments9 Cite as: 568 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court

that are made in passing without proper development. See, e.g. , United States v. Cloud , 680 F. 3d 396, 409, n. 7 (CA4 2012); United States v. Mitchell , 502 F. 3d 931, 953,

n. 2 (CA9 2007); United States v. Charles , 469 F. 3d 402, 408 (CA5 2006); Reynolds v. Wagner , 128 F. 3d 166, 178 (CA3 1997); Carducci v. Regan , 714 F. 2d 171, 177 (CADC 1983). State appellate courts are entitled to follow the same practice. Third, there are instances in which a state court may simply regard a claim as too insubstantial to merit discus

sion. Indeed, the California Court of Appeal has expressly stated that it has no obligatio n to address claims that lack arguable merit. See People v. Rojas , 118 Cal. App. 3d 278, 290, 173 Cal. Rptr. 91, 93 (1981). That court has ex

plained: “In an era in which there is concern that the quality of justice is being diminished by appellate backlog with its attendant delay, which in turn contributes to a lack of finality of judgment, it behooves us as an appellate court to ‘get to the heart’ of cases presented and dispose of them expeditiously.” Ibid. See also People v. Burke, 18 Cal. App. 72, 79, 122 P. 435, 439 (1912) (“The author of an opinion . . . must follow his own judgment as to the degree of elaboration to be accorded to the treatment of any prop

osition and as to the questions whic h are worthy of notice
at all ” (emphasis added)). While it is preferable for an appellate court in a criminal case to list all of the argu

ments that the court recognizes as having been properly presented, see R. Aldisert, Opinion Writing 95–96 (3d ed. 2012), federal courts have no authority to impose manda

tory opinion-writing standards on state courts, see Cole

man v. Thompson , 501 U. S. 722, 739 (1991) (“[W]e have no power to tell state courts how they must write their opinions”). The caseloads shou ldered by many state appel

late courts are very heavy, 2 and the opinions issued by

——————

2 See, e.g. , Judicial Council of California, 2011 Court Statistics Re

-10 JOHNSON v. WILLIAMS

Opinion of the Court

these courts must be read with that factor in mind. In sum, because it is by no means uncommon for a state court to fail to address separately a federal claim that the court has not simply overlooked, we see no sound reason for failing to apply the Richter presumption in cases like the one now before us. When a state court rejects a federal claim without expressly addressing that claim, a federal habeas court must presume that the federal claim was adjudicated on the merits—but that presumption can in
some limited circumstances be rebutted.

B
Not satisfied with a strong but rebuttable presumption, petitioner urges us to make the presumption irrebuttable. Specifically, petitioner contends that a state court must be regarded as having adjudicated a federal claim on the merits if the state court addressed “the substance of [an] asserted trial error.” Brief for Petitioner 27. Suppose, for example, that a defendant claimed in state court that something that occurred at trial violated both a provision of the Federal Constitution and a related provision of state law, and suppose further that the state court, in denying relief, made no reference to federal law. According to

—————— port, Statewide Caseload Trends, 2000–2001 Through 2009–2010, p. 15 (observing that in fiscal year 2009–2010, the 105-judge California Court of Appeal produced opinions in 10,270 cases), online at http:// www.courts.ca.gov/documents/2011CourtStatisticsReport. pdf(all Internet materials as visited Jan. 24, 2013, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file); In re Certification of Need for Additional Judges , 2012 WL 6619382 (Fla., Dec. 20, 2012) (in fiscal year 2011–2012, Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal received appeals in 6,834 cases); Supreme Court of Ohio, 2011 Ohio Courts Statistical Report, p. 14 (observing that in 2011 the State’s 69 intermediate appellate judges rendered decisions in 7,129 cases), online at http:// www.supremecourt.ohio.gov / publications / annrep / IOCS / 2011OCS.pdf; Court Statistics Project, Examinin g the Work of State Courts: An Analysis of 2010 State Court Caseloads 40 (2012) (noting that in 2010 state appellate courts received appeals in over 270,000 cases).11 Cite as: 568 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court

petitioner’s argument, a federal habeas court would be required to proceed on the assumption that the federal claim was adjudicated on the merits. This argument goes too far. To be sure, if the state-law rule subsumes the federal standard—that is, if it is at least as protective as the federal standard—then the federal claim may be regarded as having been adjudicated
on the merits. See Early v. Packer , 537 U. S. 3, 8 (2002) ( per curiam )

. But what if, for example, in at least some
circumstances the state standard is less protective? Or
what if the state standard is quite different from the federal standard, and the defendant’s papers made no effort to develop the basis for th e federal claim? What if a provision of the Federal Constitution or a federal prece

dent was simply mentioned in passing in a footnote or was buried in a string cite? In such circumstances, the pre

sumption that the federal claim was adjudicated on the merits may be rebutted—either by the habeas petitioner (for the purpose of showing that the claim should be con

sidered by the federal court de novo ) or by the State (for the purpose of showing that the federal claim should be regarded as procedurally defaulted). See Coleman

, supra , at 739 (rebuttable presumption of no independent and adequate state ground applies so long as “it fairly appears that a state court judgment rested primarily on federal law or was interwoven with federal law”). Thus, while the
Richter presumption is a strong one that may be rebutted only in unusual circumstances, it is not irrebuttable. 3 “ Per

se rules should not be applied . . . in situations where the generalization is incorrect as an empirical matter,” Cole

man , 501 U. S., at 737, and an irrebuttable presumption

——————

3 For example, when a defendant does so little to raise his claim that
he fails to “ ‘fairly present’ ” it in “each appropriate state court,” Bald

win v. Reese , 541 U. S. 27, 29 (2004), the Richter presumption is fully
rebutted.12 JOHNSON v. WILLIAMS

Opinion of the Court

that state courts never overlook federal claims would occasionally miss the mark. The language of 28 U. S. C. §2254(d) makes it clear that this provision applies only when a federal claim was “ad

judicated on the merits in State court.” A judgment is normally said to have been rendered “on the merits” only
if it was “delivered after the court . . . heard and evaluated the evidence and the parties’ substantive arguments.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1199 (9th ed. 2009) (emphasis added). And as used in this context, the word “merits” is
defined as “ [t]he intrinsic rights and wrongs of a case as determined by matters of substance , in distinction from
matters of form.” Webster’s New International Dictionary 1540 (2d ed. 1954) (emphasis added); see also, e.g., 9 Ox

ford English Dictionary 634 (2d ed. 1989) (“ the intrinsic ‘rights and wrongs’ of the matter , in contradistinction to extraneous points such as the competence of the tribunal or the like” (emphasis added)); Random House Dictionary of the English Language 897 (1967) (“the intrinsic right and wrong of a matter , as a law case, unobscured by pro

cedural details, technicalities, personal feelings, etc.” (emphasis added)). If a fe deral claim is rejected as a result of sheer inadvertence, it has not been evaluated based on the intrinsic right and wrong of the matter.

J USTICE S CALIA is surely correct that such claims have been adjudicated and present federal questions we may review, post, at 3–4, but it does not follow that they have been adjudicated “on the merits.” By having us neverthe

less apply AEDPA’s deferential standard of review in such cases, petitioner’s argument would improperly excise §2254(d)’s on-the-merits requirement. Nor does petitioner’s preferred approach follow inexora

bly from AEDPA’s deferential architecture. Even while leaving “primary responsibility” for adjudicating federal claims to the States, Woodford v. Visciotti , 537 U. S. 19, 27 (2002) ( per curiam ), AEDPA permits de novo review in13 Cite as: 568 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court

those rare cases when a state court decides a federal claim in a way that is “contrary to” clearly established Supreme Court precedent, see Panetti v. Quarterman , 551 U. S. 930, 953 (2007). When the evidence leads very clearly to the conclusion that a federal claim was inadvertently over

looked in state court, §2254(d) entitles the prisoner to an unencumbered opportunity to make his case before a fed

eral judge. We are not persuaded that applying a rebuttable pre

sumption in this context will be unduly burdensome for
federal courts. Before Richter , every Court of Appeals to consider the issue allowed a pr isoner to argue that a state
court had overlooked his federal claim. 4 That approach did not prompt an unmanageable flood of litigation, and
we see no reason to fear that it will do so now.

III
Applying the presumption of merits adjudication to the facts of this case, we hold that the Ninth Circuit erred by finding that the California Court of Appeal overlooked
Williams’ Sixth Amendment clai m. Several facts make this conclusion inescapable. Most important is the state court’s discussion of Cleve

land , 25 Cal. 4th 466, 21 P. 3d 1225, a California Supreme Court decision on which the Court of Appeal solicited briefing. Cleveland held that a California trial court, “if put on notice that a juror is not participating in deliberations,” may “conduct ‘whatev er inquiry is reasonably necessary to determine’ whether such grounds exist and

——————

4 See, e.g. , Lyell v. Renico , 470 F. 3d 1177, 1181–1182 (CA6 2006); Billings v. Polk , 441 F. 3d 238, 252 (CA4 2006); Espy v. Massac , 443
F. 3d 1362, 1364–1365, and n. 2 (CA11 2006); Brown v. Luebbers , 371
F. 3d 458, 460–461 (CA8 2004) (en banc); Chadwick v. Janecka , 312
F. 3d 597, 606 (CA3 2002); Norde v. Keane , 294 F. 3d 401, 410 (CA2 2002); Duckett v. Mullin , 306 F. 3d 982, 990 (CA10 2002); Fortini v. Murphy , 257 F. 3d 39, 47 (CA1 2001).14 JOHNSON v. WILLIAMS

Opinion of the Court

. . . discharge the juror if it appears as a ‘demonstrable reality’ that the juror is unable or unwilling to deliberate.” Id., at 484, 21 P. 3d, at 1237 (citations omitted). The
Cleveland court acknowledged “[t]he need to protect the sanctity of jury deliberations,” id., at 476, 21 P. 3d, at 1231, and included a lengthy discussion of three Federal Court of Appeals cases that it said had “considered these issues in depth,” id., at 480–484, 21 P. 3d, at 1234–1237.
Those three cases— United States v. Symington , 195 F. 3d 1080 (CA9 1999), United States v. Thomas , 116 F. 3d 606 (CA2 1997), and United States v. Brown , 823 F. 2d 591 (CADC 1987)—concern the discharge of holdout jurors in
federal court. Each case discusses the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial and concludes that a trial court should not inquire further if it appears that there is “ ‘any reason

able possibility that the impetus for a juror’s dismissal stems from the juror’s views on the merits of the case.’ ”
Cleveland

, supra, at 484, 21 P. 3d, at 1237 (quoting Sym

ington

, supra , at 1087); see also Thomas

, supra , at 621– 622; Brown

, supra , at 596. Though the Cleveland court found much to praise in these decisions, it expressly de

clined to follow them on this point. 25 Cal. 4th, at 483– 484, 21 P. 3d, at 1236–1237.
Cleveland did not expressly purpo rt to decide a federal constitutional question, but its discussion of Symington

, Thomas , and Brown shows that the California Supreme Court understood itself to be deciding a question with federal constitutional dimensions. See 25 Cal. 4th, at 487, 21 P. 3d, at 1239 (Werdegar, J., concurring) (emphasizing importance of careful appellate review in juror discharge cases in light of the “constitutional dimension to the prob

lem”). Indeed, it is difficult to imagine the California Supreme Court announcing an interpretation of Cal. Penal Code Ann. §1089 that it believed to be less protective than the Sixth Amendment, as any such interpretation would provide no guidance to state trial judges bound to follow15 Cite as: 568 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court

both state and federal law. The Ninth Circuit’s conclusion to the contrary rested
on the fact that Cleveland refused to follow Symington

, Brown , and Thomas . 646 F. 3d, at 640. But the views of the federal courts of appeals do not bind the California Supreme Court when it decides a federal constitutional question, and disagreeing with the lower federal courts is not the same as ignoring fede ral law. The Ninth Circuit’s apparent assumption that the California Supreme Court
could not refuse to follow fe deral court of appeals prece

dent without disregarding the Federal Constitution would undo §2254(d)’s “contrary to” provision, which requires
deference unless a state court fails to follow Supreme
Court precedent. 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1). Regardless of whether a Calif ornia court would consider Williams’ §1089 and Sixth Amendment claims to be per

fectly coextensive, the fact that these claims are so similar makes it unlikely that the California Court of Appealdecided one while overlooking the other. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any panel of appellate judges reading
Cleveland and passing on the propriety of dismissing a holdout juror under §1089 without realizing that such
situations also bear on the fe deral constitutional right to a fair trial. The California Court of Appeal’s quotation of our definition of “impartiality” from Wood , 299 U. S., at 145–146, points to the same conclusion, confirming that the state court was well aware that the questioning and dismissal of Juror 6 implicated both state and federal law. Williams’ litigation strategy supports the same result. Throughout her state proceed ings, Williams treated her state and federal claims as interchangeable, and it is hardly surprising that the state courts did so as well. See Brief for Appellant in No. B137365 (Cal. App.), App. 29 (citing §1089 precedent and co ncluding that Williams “was accordingly denied her Sixt h Amendment right to a unan

imous jury”). After the California Court of Appeal ren

-16 JOHNSON v. WILLIAMS

Opinion of the Court

dered its decision, Williams ne ither petitioned that court for rehearing nor argued in the subsequent state and federal proceedings that the state court had failed to adjudicate her Sixth Amendment claim on the merits. The possibility that the California Court of Appeal had simply overlooked Williams’ Sixth Amendment claim apparently did not occur to anyone until that issue was raised by two judges during the oral argument in the Ninth Circuit. See 646 F. 3d, at 638, n. 7. Williams presumably knows her case better than anyone else, and the fact that she does not appear to have thought that there was an oversight makes such a mistake most improbable. We think it exceedingly unlikely that the California Court of Appeal overlooked Williams’ federal claim, and the Ninth Circuit’s judgment to the contrary is reversed. The case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered._________________

_________________ 1 Cite as: 568 U. S. ____ (2013)

S CALIA

, J., concurring in judgment



## SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 11–465

DEBORAH K. JOHNSON, ACTING WARDEN, PETITIONER v. TARA SHENEVA WILLIAMS

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

[February 20, 2013]

J USTICE S CALIA , concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the Court’s rejection of the proposition that a judgment denying a federa l claim is irrebuttably pre

sumed to have been “adjudicat ed on the merits” within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. §2254(d). I disagree, however, that one of the grounds on which the rebuttal may rely is that the federal claim was “inadvertently overlooked.” Ante

, at 13. In my view the rebuttal must consist of a show

ing, based on the explicit text of the court’s order, or upon standard practice and understanding in the jurisdiction with regard to the meaning of an ambiguous text, that the judgment did not purport to decide the federal question. “Decided after due consideration” is not, and has never been, the meaning of the legal term of art “decided on the merits,” and giving it that meaning burdens our lower courts with an unusual subjective inquiry that demeans
state courts and will be a fert ile source of litigation and delay. In the Court’s view, a habeas petitioner receives de novo review if he can prove that the state court, although ad

dressing his state claim, overlooked his federal claim. A nonexhaustive list of factors, we are told, may bear on the analysis: state-court opinion-writing practices, ante, at 8, 9; state-law precedents and whether and how they incor

porate federal law, ante , at 8; substantiality of the federal2 JOHNSON v. WILLIAMS

S CALIA

, J., concurring in judgment

claim, ante , at 9; citations to federal cases in state-court opinions (or citations to state cases that contain citations to federal cases), ante , at 13–14; the degree of similarity between the federal and state claim, ante , at 15; a peti

tioner’s “litigation strategy,” ante , at 15–16; and other clues that may possibly illuminate the inner thought processes of a state-court judge. Only after conducting its
own detective work does the Court conclude that the fed

eral claim was not overlooked in this case. This complex exercise is unnecessary. A judgment that
denies relief necessarily denies—and thus adjudicates— all the claims a petitioner has raised. See 1 H. Black, Law of Judgments §1, p. 2 (2d ed. 1902) (“[T]he judgment neces

sarily affirms, or else denies, that [an alleged] duty or . . . liability rests upon the person against whom the aid of the law is invoked”); id ., §24, at 37. The judgment itselfgives conclusive expression that the claims have been considered and rejected— whatever the individual judge might have been pondering (or not pondering). At common law the formal language traditionally preceding the an

nouncement of a court’s judgment was “ consideratum est per curiam ” (“It is considered by the court”). See Black’s Law Dictionary 349–350 (9th ed. 2009); 1 Bouvier’s Law Dictionary 619 (8th ed. 1914). The Court maintains that “[i]f a federal claim is rejectedas a result of sheer inadvertence, it has not been evaluated based on the intrinsic right and wrong of the matter,”

ante , at 12. Perhaps not, but it nonetheless may have been rejected “on the merits.” That phrase does not sug

gest a line between a considered rejection of a claim and

an unconsidered, inadequately considered, or inadvertent rejection. Rather, it refers to a “determination that there exist or do not exist grounds en titling a petitioner” to relief under his claim, as contrasted with a “denial for such rea

sons as failure to exhaust, pr ocedural default, or statute

of-limitations bar.” Gonzalez v. Crosby , 545 U. S. 524,3 Cite as: 568 U. S. ____ (2013)

S CALIA

, J., concurring in judgment

532, n. 4 (2005). An “adjudication on the merits” is “best understood by stating what it is not: it is not a resolution of a claim on procedural grounds.” Muth v. Frank , 412
F. 3d 808, 815 (CA7 2005). And, as we have affirmed and reaffirmed recently, where a claim has been denied, but it
is unclear from the record whether the denial was on the merits or on another basis, we presume the former. Har

rington v. Richter , 562 U. S. ___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at 9– 10) (citing Harris v. Reed , 489 U. S. 255, 265 (1989)); see
also Coleman v. Thompson , 501 U. S. 722, 732–733 (1991). We apply a presumption of merits determination in that sense not just with respect to §2254(d) but for other pur

poses as well. We have long applied it, for example, in determining whether a claim is barred by res judicata:

“Ordinarily, such a question is answered by a mere inspection of the decree—the presumption being that a dismissal in equity, without qualifying words, is a
final decision on the merits . That presumption of fi

nality . . . disappears whenever the record shows that the court did not pass upon the merits but dismissed the bill because of a want of jurisdiction, for want of parties, because the suit was brought prematurely, because the plaintiff had a right to file a subsequent bill on the same subject-matter, or on any other ground not going to the merits.” Swift v . McPherson

, 232 U. S. 51, 55–56 (1914) (emphasis added); see also
Hubbell v . United States , 171 U. S. 203, 207 (1898);

Durant v . Essex Co ., 7 Wall. 107, 109 (1868).

We also apply a presumption of merits determination in the sense I have described for purposes of 28 U. S. C. §1257, which imposes a federal-question requirement as a condition of this Court’s appellate jurisdiction. Michigan

v. Long , 463 U. S. 1032, 1040–1041 (1983). Indeed, the application of the presumption in direct-review cases was the genesis of the presumption in federal habeas cases.4 JOHNSON v. WILLIAMS

S CALIA

, J., concurring in judgment

The condition for federal habeas—that the federal ques

tion must have been addressed on the merits by the state courts—did not originate with the enactment of the Anti

terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act in 1996, but was established as early as 1977 in Wainwright v. Sykes

, 433 U. S. 72, 81, 86–87. We described the assessment of whether that requirement was met as presenting “the same problem of ambiguity that this Court resolved in Michigan v. Long .” Harris , 489 U. S., at 262. And indeed, we described the habeas require ment as an application of the “adequate and independent state ground doctrine,” which inquires whether a “finding of procedural default
will bar federal habeas review.” Ibid. It is of course un

thinkable that a state-court resolution of a federal ques

tion will escape our review under §1257 if it is inadvertent
rather than intentional. Given this background, there is no reason to believe that AEDPA established a new and peculiar regime in which
the federal habeas court must make one assessment of whether the federal question has been decided “on the merits” for purposes of determining its authority to review the question (a Long assessment which counts, as §1257 cases count, inadvertent resolution of a federal question); and then must proceed to a different assessment of “on the merits” (one that does not count inadvertent resolution) for purposes of determinin g whether deference to the state-court judgment is required. But, it will be argued, how can a court “defer” to a state

court determination that was in fact never made? Must
not one first be sure it exists before one can accord it respect? The answer is no; a ccording respect only to de

terminations that have for-sure been made is demonstra

bly not the scheme that AEDPA envisions. Federal habeas courts defer to state de terminations that may in fact never have been made whenever they find a summary, unexplained rejection of a federal claim to be sustainable5 Cite as: 568 U. S. ____ (2013)

S CALIA

, J., concurring in judgment

( e.g., not contrary to clearly es tablished federal law as determined by this Court). The validating basis that the federal habeas court posits need not have been the one that the state court actually relied upon; the state court may well have applied a theory that was flat-out wrong, and may not have made the subsidiary determinations (including factual assessments) necessary to support the correct theory. That does not matter. For what is accorded deference is not the state court’s reasoning but the state court’s judgment, which is presumed to be supported by whatever valid support was available. See Harrington

, supra , at ___ (slip op., at 12) (“Under §2254(d) a habeas court must determine what arguments or theories sup

ported or, as here, could have supported, the state court’s decision”). Indeed, the defere nce with regard to the basis
of decision is much more “blind” than the deference I assert is necessary in the present case. I demand a state

court statement (contained in the unqualified terms of its judgment) that it has rejected the federal claim; I sim

ply refuse to question the veracity of that statement. By contrast, no statement is ever even required that the state court relied upon the theory of federal law that the habeas court finds validating. I doubt that the Court is pr epared to abide by its novel interpretation of “on the merits” for purposes of §2254(d). Imagine that the state court formulated its judgment as follows: “All claims raised by the defendant have been
considered and denied.” I cannot believe that the Court would require federal courts to test the veracity of that statement. Yet, as we have described, that is precisely what an (unadorned) judgment denying relief already

conveys . Although the Court acknowledges that “ ‘[w]e have no power to tell state courts how they must write their opinions,’ ” ante , at 9, its analysis would turn solely on how the order of judgment is styled. Resolution of this case is direct: Respondent’s claim was6 JOHNSON v. WILLIAMS

S CALIA

, J., concurring in judgment

“adjudicated on the merits,” because the state court ren

dered a judgment rejecting all her claims, and the judg

ment gave no indication (such as a statement that it was “without prejudice”) that it was based on a procedural or other nonmerits ground. The Court’s novel resolution of the “on the merits” ques

tion produces a clear enough answer in this case. The weight of the evidence demonstrated that it was “exceed

ingly unlikely” that the state court overlooked the federal
claim. Ante , at 16. But such ready resolution will not be commonplace. Consider another case, where the federal
and state claims are not related, where there is no rele

vant state precedent referring to federal law, where state law might be interpreted as less defendant-friendly than the federal standard, or where a confluence of such factors
exists. The answer to whether the federal claim has been “evaluated based on the intrinsic right and wrong of the matter” is anybody’s guess. One thing, however, is cer

tain: The Court’s case-by-case approach will guarantee protracted litigation over wh ether a state-court judge was aware of a claim on the day he rejected it.The Court tells us not to worry about a flood of litigation, because the Courts of Appeals have previously allowed arguments from petitioners that the state courts
overlooked their federal claims. Ante , at 13, and n. 4 (citing cases). But many of those cases applied a much simpler (and even less justifiable) test than the one adopted today: if the federal claim was not addressed in the opinion, then it was not adjudicated on the merits. See,

e.g. , Lyell v. Renico , 470 F. 3d 1177, 1181–1182 (CA6 2006); Fortini v. Murphy , 257 F. 3d 39, 47 (CA1 2001). And even those courts that attempted to “divin[e] the thought processes of” the judge limited their inquiry to
“what a state court has said .” Brown v. Luebbers , 371 F. 3d 458, 461 (CA8 2004) (emphasis added); see also, e.g., Chadwick v. Janecka , 312 F. 3d 597, 606 (CA3 2002). By7 Cite as: 568 U. S. ____ (2013)

S CALIA

, J., concurring in judgment

contrast, the Court today asks whether a judge thought
about the merits of an unaddressed claim, and leaves on the table any evidence relevant to that inquiry. This newly-sponsored enterprise of probing the judicial mind is inappropriately intrusive upon state-court pro

cesses. Are federal habeas courts now to consider evidence
relevant to the internal delib erations of the state judici

ary? Can a petitioner introduce testimony showing that state-court judges—because of time constraints, heavy caseloads, or other reasons—fail to read the briefs but leave that to their assistants, whose recommendations they rarely reject? Or testimony showing that, typically, only one judge on the state-court appellate panel reads the briefs and considers all the claims, and the others simply join the drafted order? Has there been an “adjudication on the merits” then? Future litigation will supply the

answers. For these reasons, I do not join the opinion of the Court and concur only in the judgment.