Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-826_p702.pdf
Page Number: 23.0

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

19 

Opinion of the Court 

merits of the petitioner’s claim and AEDPA does apply.  To 
the extent Fry had anything to say about that scenario, all 
it  said  was  consistent  with  what  we  say  today:    In  such 
cases, the Court recognized, relief “may not be granted un-
less the state court’s adjudication” was “unreasonable” un-
der AEDPA.  551 U. S., at 119.4
  That leaves Davis v. Ayala, where a similar story unfolds. 
There, the California Supreme Court did rule on the merits 
of  the  petitioner’s  claim:  It  determined  that  any  federal 
constitutional  errors  in  his  trial-court  proceedings  were 
harmless  under  Chapman.  Ayala,  576  U. S.,  at  263–264. 
In later federal habeas proceedings, the Ninth Circuit ap-
plied  Brecht,  found  prejudice,  and  granted  relief  without 
pausing to consider AEDPA directly.  Ayala  v.  Wong, 756 
F. 3d  656,  674  (CA9  2014).  Instead,  it  asserted,  much  as 
Mr. Davenport does, that a favorable finding for a petitioner 
under  Brecht  necessarily  answers  AEDPA’s  distinct  in-
quiry.  756 F. 3d, at 674, n. 13.  In the end, however, this 
Court reversed.  We held that the Ninth Circuit misapplied 
Brecht and that a proper Brecht analysis precluded relief.
Along  the way,  we  indicated  that  the  petitioner  could not
prove eligibility for relief under AEDPA’s demanding stand-
ard either. 
—————— 

4 As it must, the dissent concedes that Fry addressed arguments “dif-
fer[ent] from [Mr.] Davenport’s.”  Post, at 9.  Even so, the dissent latches 
onto Fry’s passing description of AEDPA as “ ‘more liberal’ ” than Brecht 
and its statement that the latter “ ‘subsumes’ ” the former.  Post, at 1, 10, 
11,  12.  For  reasons  we  have  discussed,  however,  this  dicta  does  not 
transform  Fry  into  a  ruling  that  habeas  courts  must  grant  relief  upon 
satisfaction of Brecht without evaluating the state court’s judgment un-
der  AEDPA.  But  there  is  still  another  problem  with  the  dissent’s  at-
tempt to invoke Fry as support for its position.  Remember, the dissent’s 
claim that Brecht duplicates AEDPA depends on a premise wholly alien 
to  the  Fry  Court—a  new  rule  (Brecht  2.0)  requiring  courts  applying 
Brecht  to  consult  only  “AEDPA-approved  materials.”    See  n. 3,  supra. 
The dissent’s argument thus boils down to an assertion that we should 
today  rewrite  one  precedent  (Brecht)  and  then  attribute  clairvoyance 
about our revisions to another past Court (Fry).