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Page Number: 20.0

16 

BROWN v. DAVENPORT 

Opinion of the Court 

is  not  enough  that  the  state-court  decision  offends  lower 
federal court precedents.  See, e.g., Glebe v. Frost, 574 U. S. 
21, 24 (2014) (per curiam).  This Court’s dicta cannot supply
a  ground  for  relief.   See,  e.g.,  White  v.  Woodall,  572  U. S. 
415, 419 (2014).  Nor can holdings that speak only at a high
level of generality.  See, e.g., Lopez v. Smith, 574 U. S. 1, 6 
(2014) (per curiam); Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U. S. 652, 
664 (2004).  Under AEDPA too, “[s]tate-court decisions are 
measured against this Court’s precedents as of ‘the time the 
state court renders its decision’ ” and cannot be held unrea-
sonable only in light of later decided cases.  Pinholster, 563 
U. S., at 182 (quoting Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U. S. 63, 71– 
72 (2003)).  None of these restrictions applies under Brecht. 
There, a federal habeas court may consult and draw on the
whole body of law.  So, for example, a petitioner might be 
able to prevail under Brecht thanks to favorable circuit case 
law  but  still  lose  under  AEDPA  because  no  comparable
holding exists in this Court’s precedents. 

Today’s  case  illustrates  how  these  differences  matter. 
The Sixth Circuit granted relief to Mr. Davenport after con-
cluding that it harbored grave doubts about the jury’s ver-
dict.  It  did  not  claim  that  every  reasonable  jurist  would 
share its doubts.  Nor did it purport to hold that the Michi-
gan state courts had acted contrary to or unreasonably ap-
plied  a  decision  of  this  Court.    Instead,  the  Sixth  Circuit 
said  only  that  the  state-court  decisions  in  this  case  could
not be reconciled with a roughly analogous precedent from
the Ninth Circuit.  964 F. 3d, at 467.  Even assuming the
Sixth Circuit’s analysis was enough to permit relief under 
Brecht, none of its reasoning was enough to warrant relief
under AEDPA.  Nor can any of this come as a surprise.  As 
we have seen, if AEDPA makes winning habeas relief more
difficult, it is because Congress adopted the law to do just