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Unit: $U46

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WILLIAMS v. TAYLOR

Opinion of the Court

should not transform the inquiry into a subjective one by
resting its determination instead on the simple fact that at
least one of the Nation’s jurists has applied the relevant fed-
eral law in the same manner the state court did in the habeas
petitioner’s case. The “all reasonable jurists” standard
would tend to mislead federal habeas courts by focusing their
attention on a subjective inquiry rather than on an objective
one. For example, the Fifth Circuit appears to have applied
its “reasonable jurist” standard in just such a subjective
manner. See Drinkard v. Johnson, 97 F. 3d 751, 769 (1996)
(holding that state court’s application of federal law was not
unreasonable because the Fifth Circuit panel split 2–1 on the
underlying mixed constitutional question), cert. denied, 520
U. S. 1107 (1997). As I explained in Wright with respect to
the “reasonable jurist” standard in the Teague context,
“[e]ven though we have characterized the new rule inquiry
as whether ‘reasonable jurists’ could disagree as to whether
a result is dictated by precedent, the standard for determin-
ing when a case establishes a new rule is ‘objective,’ and the
mere existence of conﬂicting authority does not necessarily
mean a rule is new.” 505 U. S., at 304 (citation omitted).

The term “unreasonable” is no doubt difﬁcult to deﬁne.
That said, it is a common term in the legal world and, accord-
ingly, federal judges are familiar with its meaning. For pur-
poses of today’s opinion, the most important point is that an
unreasonable application of federal law is different from an
incorrect application of federal law. Our opinions in Wright,
for example, make that difference clear. Justice Thomas’
criticism of this Court’s subsequent reliance on Brown
turned on that distinction. The Court in Brown, Justice
Thomas contended, held only that a federal habeas court
must determine whether the relevant state-court adjudica-
tion resulted in a “ ‘satisfactory conclusion.’ ” 505 U. S., at
In Justice Thomas’
287 (quoting Brown, 344 U. S., at 463).
view, Brown did not answer “the question whether a ‘satis-
factory’ conclusion was one that the habeas court considered