Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 486.0

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Unit: $U46

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Cite as: 529 U. S. 362 (2000)

411

Opinion of the Court

correct, as opposed to merely reasonable.” 505 U. S., at 287
In my separate opinion in Wright,
(emphases in original).
I made the same distinction, maintaining that “a state court’s
incorrect legal determination has [never] been allowed to
stand because it was reasonable. We have always held that
federal courts, even on habeas, have an independent obliga-
tion to say what the law is.”
Id., at 305 (emphases added).
In § 2254(d)(1), Congress speciﬁcally used the word “unrea-
sonable,” and not a term like “erroneous” or “incorrect.”
Under § 2254(d)(1)’s “unreasonable application” clause, then,
a federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because
that court concludes in its independent judgment that the
relevant state-court decision applied clearly established fed-
eral law erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application
must also be unreasonable.

Justice Stevens turns a blind eye to the debate in
Wright because he ﬁnds no indication in § 2254(d)(1) itself
that Congress was “directly inﬂuenced” by Justice Thomas’
opinion in Wright. Ante, at 387–388, n. 14. As Justice
Stevens himself apparently recognizes, however, Congress
need not mention a prior decision of this Court by name in
a statute’s text in order to adopt either a rule or a meaning
given a certain term in that decision. See ante, at 380, n. 11.
In any event, whether Congress intended to codify the stand-
ard of review suggested by Justice Thomas in Wright is
beside the point. Wright is important for the light it sheds
on § 2254(d)(1)’s requirement that a federal habeas court in-
quire into the reasonableness of a state court’s application
of clearly established federal law. The separate opinions in
Wright concerned the very issue addressed by § 2254(d)(1)’s
“unreasonable application” clause—whether, in reviewing a
state-court decision on a state prisoner’s claims under fed-
eral
law, a federal habeas court should ask whether the
state-court decision was correct or simply whether it was
reasonable. Justice Stevens’ claim that the debate in
Wright concerned only the meaning of the Teague nonretro-