Opinion ID: 770081
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Standard of review applicable to state court findings

Text: 17 Before turning to the merits of Torres's claim, we address the standard of review to be applied to the state trial and appellate courts' determinations that no hearing was required under Pate. Like the district court, we are bound to apply the standards set out in 28 U.S.C. S 2254(d) to the state courts' determinations that there was no bona fide doubt regarding Torres's competence. Section 2254(d) permits us to grant relief only if the state court's adjudication: (1) was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court, or (2) was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding. 28 U.S.C. S 2254(d)(1), (2); Williams v. Taylor, 120 S. Ct. 1495, 1523 (2000). 18 The state courts correctly identified Pate as the controlling standard, and they did not reach a result different from Pate on indistinguishable facts; their determination therefore was not contrary to clearly established Supreme Court law. See Williams, 120 S. Ct. at 1519. But the decision that the evidence did not require a Pate hearing could be either an unreasonable application of Pate (under the second clause of S 2254(d)(1)) or an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in state court (under S 2254(d)(2)). Because the Supreme Court has treated the question whether a competency hearing is required as an issue of fact, see Maggio, 462 U.S. at 117, we are inclined to analyze the state court's decision in this case as a potentially unreasonable determination of the facts. 19 If we are wrong, and the issue is better characterized as one of unreasonable application of Pate under S 2254(d)(1), it makes no difference for purposes of the standard of review. With respect to the unreasonable application  clause, the Supreme Court has made clear that unreasonableness means more than mere incorrectness. See Williams, 120 S. Ct. at 1522. It is an objective standard, however, and does not require that all reasonable jurists would agree that the determination was unreasonable. See id. at 1521-22. In light of these pronouncements from Williams and the purposes of the amended S 2254, we have recently concluded that the unreasonable applicationstandard of S 2254(d)(1) is equivalent to the clearly erroneous standard that we apply to review of factual determinations by district courts. See Van Tran v. Lindsey, 212 F.3d 1143, 1153-54 (9th Cir. 2000). We see no reason why this standard of unreasonableness for purposes of the unreasonable application clause of S 2254(d)(1) would not apply as well to unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence under S 2254(d)(2). Thus, although we proceed to analyze the state courts' decision for unreasonableness in determining the facts, we apply the same standard of deference that we would apply if we were determining the unreasonableness of an application of Pate to these facts. We may grant Torres relief not if we merely conclude that he has the better of two reasonable . . . arguments, but only if we are left with a `firm conviction'  that the determination made by the state court was wrong and that the one Torres urges was correct. Van Tran, 212 F.3d at 1153-54. We turn, then, to the state courts' ruling.