Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 483

529US2

Unit: $U46

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408

WILLIAMS v. TAYLOR

Opinion of the Court

particular prisoner’s case certainly would qualify as a deci-
sion “involv[ing] an unreasonable application of . . . clearly
established Federal law.”
Indeed, we used the almost iden-
tical phrase “application of law” to describe a state court’s
application of law to fact in the certiorari question we posed
to the parties in Wright.*

The Fourth Circuit also held in Green that state-court de-
cisions that unreasonably extend a legal principle from our
precedent to a new context where it should not apply (or
unreasonably refuse to extend a legal principle to a new
context where it should apply) should be analyzed under
§ 2254(d)(1)’s “unreasonable application” clause. See 143
F. 3d, at 869–870. Although that holding may perhaps be
correct, the classiﬁcation does have some problems of preci-
sion.
Just as it is sometimes difﬁcult to distinguish a mixed
question of law and fact from a question of fact, it will often
be difﬁcult to identify separately those state-court decisions
that involve an unreasonable application of a legal principle
(or an unreasonable failure to apply a legal principle) to a
new context.
Indeed, on the one hand, in some cases it will
be hard to distinguish a decision involving an unreasonable
extension of a legal principle from a decision involving an
unreasonable application of law to facts. On the other hand,
in many of the same cases it will also be difﬁcult to distin-
guish a decision involving an unreasonable extension of a
legal principle from a decision that “arrives at a conclusion
opposite to that reached by this Court on a question of law,”
supra, at 405. Today’s case does not require us to decide how

*The legislative history of § 2254(d)(1) also supports this interpretation.
See, e. g., 142 Cong. Rec. 7799 (1996) (remarks of Sen. Specter) (“[U]nder
the bill deference will be owed to State courts’ decisions on the application
of Federal law to the facts. Unless it is unreasonable, a State court’s
decision applying the law to the facts will be upheld”); 141 Cong. Rec.
14666 (1995) (remarks of Sen. Hatch) (“[W]e allow a Federal court to over-
turn a State court decision only if it is contrary to clearly established
Federal law or if it involves an ‘unreasonable application’ of clearly estab-
lished Federal law to the facts”).