Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 294

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

133 

Per Curiam 

can  only  set  aside  a  state-court  decision  as  “an  unreason­
able  application  of  .  .  .  clearly  established  Federal  law,” 
§ 2254(d)(1), if the state court’s application of that law is “ob­
jectively  unreasonable,”  Williams  v.  Taylor,  529  U. S.  362, 
409  (2000).  And  Jackson  requires  a  reviewing  court  to  re­
view  the evidence  “in the  light  most favorable  to the  prose­
cution.”  443  U. S.,  at  319.  Expressed  more  fully,  this 
means  a  reviewing  court  “faced  with  a  record  of  historical 
facts  that  supports  conﬂicting  inferences  must  presume— 
even  if  it  does  not  afﬁrmatively  appear  in  the  record—that 
the  trier  of  fact  resolved  any  such  conﬂicts  in  favor  of  the 
prosecution, and must defer to that resolution.”  Id., at 326; 
see also Schlup v.  Delo, 513 U. S. 298, 330 (1995) (“The Jack­
son standard . . . looks to whether there is sufﬁcient evidence 
which,  if  credited,  could  support  the  conviction”).  The 
Court of Appeals acknowledged that it must review the evi­
dence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, but the 
court’s recitation of inconsistencies in the testimony shows it 
failed to do that. 

For example, the court highlights conﬂicting testimony re­
garding  when  Troy  left  the  Peacock.  525  F.  3d,  at  797.  It 
is  true  that  if  a  juror  were  to  accept  the  testimony  of  one 
bartender  that  Troy  left  the  bar  at  1:30  a.m.,  then  Troy 
would  have  left  the  bar  after  the  attack  occurred.  Yet  the 
jury  could  have  credited  a  different  bartender’s  testimony 
that  Troy  left  the  Peacock  at  around  12:15  a.m.  Resolving 
the  conﬂict  in  favor  of  the  prosecution,  the  jury  must  have 
found  that  Troy  left  the  bar  in  time  to  be  the  assailant.  It 
is undisputed that Troy washed his clothes immediately upon 
returning  home.  The  court  notes  this  is  “plausibly  consist­
ent  with  him  being  the  assailant”  but  also  that  he  pro­
vided  an  alternative  reason  for  washing  his  clothes.  Ibid. 
Viewed  in  the  light  most  favorable  to  the  prosecution,  the 
evidence supports an inference that Troy washed the clothes 
immediately to clean blood from them.