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

383

Opinion of Stevens, J.

Brief for California et al. as Amici Curiae 6 (quoting Butler
v. McKellar, 494 U. S. 407, 414 (1990)). The position has
been bolstered with references to our statements elucidating
the “new rule” inquiry as one turning on whether “reason-
able jurists” would agree the rule was not clearly estab-
lished. Sawyer v. Smith, 497 U. S. 227, 234 (1990). This
presumption of deference was in essence the position taken
by three Members of this Court in Wright, 505 U. S., at 290–
291 (opinion of Thomas, J.) (“[A] federal habeas court ‘must
defer to the state court’s decision rejecting the claim unless
that decision is patently unreasonable’ ”) (quoting Butler, 494
U. S., at 422 (Brennan, J., dissenting)).

Teague, however, does not extend this far. The often re-
peated language that Teague endorses “reasonable, good-
faith interpretations” by state courts is an explanation of
policy, not a statement of law. The Teague cases reﬂect this
Court’s view that habeas corpus is not to be used as a second
criminal trial, and federal courts are not to run roughshod
over the considered ﬁndings and judgments of the state
courts that conducted the original trial and heard the initial
appeals. On the contrary, we have long insisted that federal
habeas courts attend closely to those considered decisions,
and give them full effect when their ﬁndings and judgments
are consistent with federal law. See Thompson v. Keohane,
516 U. S. 99, 107–116 (1995). But as Justice O’Connor ex-
plained in Wright:

“[T]he duty of the federal court in evaluating whether
a rule is ‘new’ is not the same as deference; . . . Teague
does not direct federal courts to spend less time or ef-
fort scrutinizing the existing federal law, on the ground
that they can assume the state courts interpreted it
properly. . . .

“[T]he maxim that federal courts should ‘give great
weight to the considered conclusions of a coequal state
judiciary’ . . . does not mean that we have held in the
past that federal courts must presume the correctness