Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-826_p702.pdf
Page Number: 3.0

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

3 

Syllabus 

that, if a state court has adjudicated the petitioner’s claim on the mer-
its,  a  federal  court  “shall  not”  grant  habeas  relief  “unless”  the  state
court’s decision was (1) “contrary to” or an “unreasonable application
of” clearly established federal law, as determined by the decisions of
this Court, or (2) based on an “unreasonable determination of the facts” 
presented in the state-court proceeding.  28 U. S. C. §2254(d).  AEDPA 
thus left intact the equitable discretion invested in federal courts by 
earlier federal habeas statutes.  Pp. 7–14.

(c) Mr. Davenport’s two arguments in defense of the Sixth Circuit’s

decision lack merit.  Pp. 14–21.

(1) Mr. Davenport argues that because the AEDPA inquiry repre-
sents a logical subset of the Brecht test, the Sixth Circuit necessarily 
found that he satisfied AEDPA when he satisfied Brecht.  That argu-
ment is mistaken.  Proof of prejudice under Brecht does not equate to
a successful showing under AEDPA.  The inquiries under Brecht and 
AEDPA are different.  Where AEDPA asks whether every fair-minded 
jurist  would  agree  that  an  error  was  prejudicial,  Brecht  asks  only
whether  a  federal  habeas  court  itself  harbors  grave  doubt  about  the 
petitioner’s verdict.  The legal materials a court may consult when an-
swering each test also differ.  Where AEDPA requires state-court de-
cisions  to  be  measured  against  this  Court’s  clearly  established  hold-
ings, Brecht invites analysis based on the whole body of law.  Assuming
that the Sixth Circuit’s analysis was enough to satisfy Brecht, it was 
not enough to warrant eligibility for relief under AEDPA.  Pp. 14–16.

(2) Mr.  Davenport  argues  that  this  Court’s  precedents  in  Fry  v. 
Pliler, 551 U. S. 112, and Davis v. Ayala, 576 U. S. 257, require a rul-
ing in his favor.  But the holding in neither case helps Mr. Davenport, 
and neither case resolved the question now before the Court.  Instead, 
Mr.  Davenport  focuses  on  a  brief  passage  from  Fry,  repeated  in 
Ayala—“it  certainly  makes  no  sense  to  require  formal  application  of 
both  tests  (AEDPA/Chapman  and  Brecht)  when  the  latter  obviously
subsumes the former,” 551 U. S., at 120—that he believes supports the 
theory that a court may grant relief without applying AEDPA.  It does 
not.  In any event, this Court has long stressed that “the language of
an opinion is not always to be parsed as though we were dealing with
[the] language of a statute.”  Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330. 
The  Court  will  not  override  a  lawful  congressional  command  on  the
basis  of  curated  snippets  extracted  from  decisions  with  no  reason  to
pass on the arguments Mr. Davenport presses here.  Pp. 17–21. 

(d) Even assuming that Mr. Davenport’s claim can survive Brecht, 
he cannot satisfy AEDPA.  Mr. Davenport argues the Michigan Court 
of Appeals’ disposition of his shackling claim is contrary to, or an un-
reasonable application of, this Court’s decision in Holbrook v. Flynn, 
475  U. S.  560.  Holbrook  rejected  the  defendant’s  claim  that  he  was