Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 452

Cite as: 558 U. S. 290 (2010) 

291 

Syllabus 

District Court concluded that the state court’s ﬁnding that counsel made 
a  strategic  decision  was  an  unreasonable  determination  of  the  facts. 
The court further held that counsel’s performance was deﬁcient and had 
prejudiced  Wood,  and  that  the  state  court’s  contrary  holdings  were  an 
unreasonable application of federal law under Strickland v.  Washington, 
466  U. S.  668.  Reversing,  the  Eleventh  Circuit  held  that  the  state 
court’s  rejection  of  Wood’s  ineffective-assistance  claim  was  neither  an 
unreasonable  application of  clearly  established law  nor  based  on an  un­
reasonable determination of the facts.  With respect to the facts, it con­
cluded  that  the  evidence  in  the  Rule  32  hearings  supported  the  state 
court’s  strategic-decision  ﬁnding,  and  it  agreed  with  the  state  court’s 
legal conclusion that counsel’s strategic decision was reasonable and that 
Wood  had  failed  to  show  prejudice.  Wood’s  certiorari  petition  raises 
the questions  (1) whether,  in order to  obtain relief under  § 2254(d)(2), a 
petitioner must establish only that the state-court factual determination 
on  which  the  decision  was  based  was  “unreasonable,”  or  whether 
§ 2254(e)(1)  additionally  requires  a  petitioner  to  rebut  a  presumption 
that the determination was correct with clear and convincing evidence; 
and  (2)  whether  the  state  court’s  strategic-decision  determination  was 
reasonable. 

Held: 

1.  Even  under  Wood’s  reading  of  § 2254(d)(2),  the  state  court’s  con­
clusion  that  his  counsel  made  a  strategic  decision  not  to  pursue  or 
present evidence of his mental deﬁciencies was not an unreasonable de­
termination  of the  facts in  light of  the  evidence presented  in the  state-
court  proceedings.  This  Court  need  not  reach  the  question  whether 
§ 2254(e)(1)  applies 
in  every  case  presenting  a  challenge  under 
§ 2254(d)(2),  see  Rice  v.  Collins,  546  U. S.  333,  339,  because  its  view  of 
the state court’s factual determination here does not depend on an inter­
pretative  difference  regarding  the  relationship  between  those  provi­
sions.  While “[t]he term ‘unreasonable’  is  .  .  .  difﬁcult  to  deﬁne,”  Wil­
liams  v.  Taylor,  529  U. S.  362,  410,  it  sufﬁces  to  say  that  a  state-court 
factual  determination  is  not  unreasonable  merely  because  the  federal 
habeas  court  would  have  reached  a  different  conclusion  in  the  ﬁrst  in­
stance.  See  Rice,  546  U. S.,  at  341–342.  Here,  the  state-court  record 
shows that all of Wood’s counsel read the Kirkland report.  Trotter tes­
tiﬁed  that  Dozier  told  him  that  nothing  in  the  report  merited  further 
investigation, a recollection supported by the attorneys’ contemporane­
ous  letters;  and  Trotter  told  the  sentencing  judge  that  counsel  did  not 
intend  to introduce  the report  to the  jury.  This evidence  can  fairly be 
read to support the Rule 32 court’s factual determination that counsel’s 
failure to pursue or present evidence of Wood’s mental deﬁciencies was