Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 437.0

529US2

Unit: $U46

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362

OCTOBER TERM, 1999

Syllabus

WILLIAMS v. TAYLOR, WARDEN

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the fourth circuit

No. 98–8384. Argued October 4, 1999—Decided April 18, 2000

A Virginia jury convicted petitioner Williams of robbery and capital
murder, and, after a sentencing hearing, found a probability of future
dangerousness and unanimously ﬁxed his punishment at death. Con-
cluding that such punishment was “proper” and “just,” the trial judge
imposed the death sentence. The Virginia Supreme Court afﬁrmed.
In state habeas corpus proceedings, the same trial judge found, on the
evidence adduced after hearings, that Williams’ conviction was valid,
but that his counsel’s failure to discover and present signiﬁcant mitigat-
ing evidence violated his right to the effective assistance of counsel
under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668.
In rejecting the trial
judge’s recommendation that Williams be resentenced, the State Su-
preme Court held, inter alia, that the trial judge had failed to recognize
that Strickland had been modiﬁed by Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U. S.
364, 369, and that Williams had not suffered sufﬁcient prejudice to war-
rant relief.
In habeas corpus proceedings under 28 U. S. C. § 2254, the
federal trial judge agreed with the state trial judge that the death
sentence was constitutionally inﬁrm on ineffective-assistance grounds.
The federal judge identiﬁed ﬁve categories of mitigating evidence that
counsel had failed to introduce and rejected the argument that such
failure had been a strategic decision to rely primarily on the fact that
Williams had confessed voluntarily. As to prejudice, the judge deter-
mined, among other things, that there was a reasonable probability that,
but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding
would have been different, see Strickland, 466 U. S., at 694. Applying
an amended version of § 2254(d)(1) enacted in the Antiterrorism and
Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), the judge concluded that
the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision “was contrary to, or involved an
unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as deter-
mined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” The Fourth Cir-
cuit reversed, construing § 2254(d)(1) to prohibit federal habeas relief
unless the state court had interpreted or applied the relevant precedent
in a manner that reasonable jurists would all agree is unreasonable.
The court declared that it could not say that the Virginia Supreme
Court’s decision on prejudice was an unreasonable application of the
Strickland or Lockhart standards established by the Supreme Court.