Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-826_p702.pdf
Page Number: 21.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

17 

Opinion of the Court 

that.3 

B 
Failing in his first argument, Mr. Davenport offers an al-
ternative.  Even if all we have said is true as a matter of 
logic, he suggests, we should rule for him anyway as a mat-
ter of precedent thanks to Fry v. Pliler, 551 U. S. 112, and 
Davis v. Ayala, 576 U. S. 257. 

Here, too, we cannot agree.  Start with Fry.  Because no 
state court had ruled on the merits of the petitioner’s Chap-
man claim, everyone in Fry agreed that AEDPA did not ap-
ply to his federal habeas petition.  Seeking to leverage that
fact  to  his  further  advantage,  the  petitioner  argued  that
Congress implicitly swept away this Court’s equitable ha-
beas precedents when it adopted AEDPA.  551 U. S., at 119. 
The upshot?  On the petitioner’s view, this meant a federal 
habeas court had to apply Chapman (not Brecht or AEDPA) 
to his case.  Ultimately, the Court rejected this argument, 
confirming  instead  that  our  equitable  precedents  remain
applicable “whether or not” AEDPA applies.  551 U. S., at 
—————— 

3 The  dissent  attempts  to  paper  over  the  differences  between  Brecht 
and AEDPA in two strokes.  First, it suggests that asking Brecht’s ques-
tion whether one jurist harbors grave doubt about the prejudicial effect 
of a trial error is effectively the same thing as asking AEDPA’s question
whether any fairminded jurist could reach the Chapman decision a state 
court did.  Post, at 12–13.  Second, to work its way around the fact that 
Brecht and AEDPA require courts to consult different bodies of law, the 
dissent argues for the creation of a new version of Brecht in which habeas 
courts must “confin[e themselves] to using AEDPA-approved materials.” 
Post, at 8.  Call it Brecht 2.0.  Neither move succeeds.  Brecht and AEDPA 
ask analytically distinct questions—and AEDPA’s test alone is statuto-
rily mandated.  Until today, too, Brecht has permitted courts to consult 
the  full  body of  law.   Besides, if  the  dissent  really  believes  Brecht  and 
AEDPA  always  lead  to  the  same  result,  it  is  unclear  why  it  objects  so 
strongly to our judgment today.  The dissent does not quibble with how 
we apply AEDPA to Mr. Davenport’s case.  See Part IV, infra.  And, man-
ifestly, the Court of Appeals did not confine itself to consulting “AEDPA-
approved  materials,”  but  relied  in  part  on  circuit  case  law  to  overturn 
Mr. Davenport’s conviction.  See supra, at 16.