Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 292.0

Cite as: 558 U. S. 120 (2010) 

131 

Per Curiam 

was  insufﬁcient  to  convict  unless  some  of  it  was  excluded. 
Respondent’s  concession  thus  disposes  of  his  Jackson  claim. 
The concession is also clearly correct.  An “appellate court’s 
reversal for insufﬁciency of the evidence is in effect a deter­
mination  that  the  government’s  case  against  the  defendant 
was  so  lacking  that  the  trial  court  should  have  entered  a 
judgment of acquittal.”  Lockhart v.  Nelson, 488 U. S. 33, 39 
(1988).  Because reversal for insufﬁciency of the evidence is 
equivalent to a judgment of acquittal, such a reversal bars a 
retrial.  See  Burks  v.  United  States,  437  U. S.  1,  18  (1978). 
To  “make  the  analogy  complete”  between  a  reversal  for  in­
sufﬁciency  of  the  evidence  and  the  trial  court’s  granting 
a  judgment  of  acquittal,  Lockhart,  488  U. S.,  at  42,  “a 
reviewing  court  must  consider  all  of  the  evidence  admitted 
by the trial court,” regardless of whether that evidence was 
admitted erroneously, id., at 41. 

Respondent therefore correctly concedes that a reviewing 
court  must  consider  all  of  the  evidence  admitted  at  trial 
when considering a Jackson claim.  Even if we set that con­
cession  aside,  however,  and  assume  that  the  Court  of  Ap­
peals  could  have  considered  the  Mueller  Report  in  the  con­
text  of  a  Jackson  claim,  the  court  made  an  egregious  error 
in  concluding  the  Nevada  Supreme  Court’s  rejection  of  re­
spondent’s  insufﬁciency-of-the-evidence  claim  “involved  an 
unreasonable  application  of  .  .  .  clearly  established  Federal 
law,” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1).4 

4 The  Court of  Appeals also  clearly erred  in concluding  the  Nevada Su­
preme Court’s decision was “contrary to” Jackson.  The Court of Appeals 
held the Nevada Supreme Court’s decision was “contrary to” Jackson be­
cause  the  Nevada  court  stated  a  standard  that  turns  on  a  “reasonable” 
jury,  not  a  “rational”  one,  and  that  assesses  whether  the  jury  could  have 
been  convinced  of  a  defendant’s  guilt,  rather  than  whether  it  could  have 
been convinced of each element of the crime.  Brown v.  Farwell, 525 F. 3d 
787, 794–795 (CA9 2008).  It is of little moment that the Nevada Supreme 
Court  analyzed  whether  a  “reasonable”  jury  could  be  convinced  of  guilt 
beyond  a  reasonable  doubt,  rather  than  asking  whether  a  “rational”  one 
could be convinced of each element of guilt; a reasonable jury could hardly