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529US2

Unit: $U46

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WILLIAMS v. TAYLOR

Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.

See 254 Va., at 26–27, 487 S. E. 2d, at 200. Because the
Virginia Supreme Court did not rely on Lockhart to make
its decision, and, instead, appropriately relied on Strickland,
that court’s adjudication was not “contrary to” this Court’s
clearly established precedent.

The question then becomes whether the Virginia Supreme
Court’s adjudication resulted from an “unreasonable applica-
tion of ” Strickland.

In my view, it did not.

I, like the Virginia Supreme Court and the Federal Court
of Appeals below, will assume without deciding that counsel’s
performance fell below an objective standard of reasonable-
ness. As to the prejudice inquiry, I agree with the Court of
Appeals that evidence showing that petitioner presented a
future danger to society was overwhelming. As that court
stated:

“The murder of Mr. Stone was just one act in a crime
Indeed, the
spree that lasted most of Williams’s life.
jury heard evidence that, in the months following the
murder of Mr. Stone, Williams savagely beat an elderly
woman, stole two cars, set ﬁre to a home, stabbed a man
during a robbery, set ﬁre to the city jail, and confessed
to having strong urges to choke other inmates and to
break a fellow prisoner’s jaw.” 163 F. 3d 860, 868
(CA4 1998).

sentence,’ ” 254 Va., at 26, 487 S. E. 2d, at 200 (quoting Strickland v. Wash-
ington, 466 U. S. 668, 698–699 (1984)); “[w]hat the Supreme Court said in
Strickland applies with full force here: ‘Given the overwhelming aggravat-
ing factors, there is no reasonable probability that the omitted evidence
would have changed the conclusion that the aggravating circumstances
outweighed the mitigating circumstances and, hence, the sentence im-
posed;’ ” 254 Va., at 26, 487 S. E. 2d, at 200 (quoting Strickland, supra, at
700); and “[i]n conclusion, employing the language of Strickland, the pris-
oner ‘has made no showing that the justice of his sentence was rendered
unreliable by a breakdown in the adversary process caused by deﬁciencies
in counsel’s assistance.
[The prisoner’s] sentencing proceeding was not
fundamentally unfair,’ ” 254 Va., at 27, 487 S. E. 2d, at 200 (quoting Strick-
land, supra, at 700).