Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 492.0

529US2

Unit: $U46

[10-07-01 17:18:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 362 (2000)

417

Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.

Supreme Court’s adjudication was “contrary to” or an “un-
reasonable application of ” Strickland.

Generally,

in an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel

case
where the state court applies Strickland, federal habeas
courts can proceed directly to “unreasonable application” re-
view. But, according to the substance of petitioner’s argu-
ment, this could be one of the rare cases where a state court
applied the wrong Supreme Court precedent, and, conse-
quently, reached an incorrect result. Petitioner argues, and
the Court agrees, that the Virginia Supreme Court improp-
erly held that Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U. S. 364 (1993),
“modiﬁed or in some way supplanted” the rule set down in
I agree that such a holding
Strickland. See ante, at 391.
would be improper. But the Virginia Supreme Court did
not so hold as it did not rely on Lockhart to reach its decision.
Before delving into the evidence presented at the sentenc-

ing proceeding, the Virginia Supreme Court stated:

“We shall demonstrate that the criminal proceeding sen-
tencing defendant to death was not fundamentally unfair
or unreliable, and that the prisoner’s assertions about
the potential effects of the omitted proof do not establish
a ‘reasonable probability’ that the result of the proceed-
ing would have been different, nor any probability sufﬁ-
cient to undermine conﬁdence in the outcome. There-
fore, any ineffective assistance of counsel did not result
in actual prejudice to the accused.” Williams v. War-
den, 254 Va. 16, 25, 487 S. E. 2d 194, 199 (1997).

While the ﬁrst part of this statement refers to Lockhart, the
rest of the statement is straight out of Strickland.
Indeed,
after the initial allusion to Lockhart, the Virginia Supreme
Court’s analysis explicitly proceeds under Strickland alone.*

*In analyzing the evidence that was presented to the sentencing jury,
the Virginia Supreme Court stated: “Drawing on Strickland, we hold that,
even assuming the challenged conduct of counsel was unreasonable, the
prisoner ‘suffered insufﬁcient prejudice to warrant setting aside his death