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529US2

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WILLIAMS v. TAYLOR

Opinion of the Court

way,15 we are convinced that Congress did not intend the
statute to produce such a result.

III

In this case, Williams contends that he was denied his con-
stitutionally guaranteed right to the effective assistance of
counsel when his trial lawyers failed to investigate and to
present substantial mitigating evidence to the sentencing
jury. The threshold question under AEDPA is whether Wil-
liams seeks to apply a rule of law that was clearly established
at the time his state-court conviction became ﬁnal. That
question is easily answered because the merits of his claim
are squarely governed by our holding in Strickland v. Wash-
ington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984).

We explained in Strickland that a violation of the right on

which Williams relies has two components:

“First, the defendant must show that counsel’s perform-
ance was deﬁcient. This requires showing that counsel
made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning
as the ‘counsel’ guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth
Amendment. Second, the defendant must show that
the deﬁcient performance prejudiced the defense. This
requires showing that counsel’s errors were so serious
as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose
result is reliable.”

Id., at 687.

To establish ineffectiveness, a “defendant must show that
counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of

15 See, e. g., Mackey v. United States, 401 U. S. 667, 689 (1971); Felker v.
Turpin, 518 U. S. 651, 667 (1996) (Souter, J., concurring).
Indeed, a con-
trary rule would be in substantial tension with the interest in uniformity
served by Congress’ modiﬁcation in AEDPA of our previous Teague juris-
prudence—now the law on habeas review must be “clearly established” by
this Court alone. See supra, at 381–382.
It would thus seem somewhat
perverse to ascribe to Congress the entirely inconsistent policy of perpetu-
ating disparate readings of our decisions under the guise of deference to
anything within a conceivable spectrum of reasonableness.