Opinion ID: 774557
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Review under the AEDPA

Text: 16 Wildman's federal habeas petition, which he filed on April 18, 1997, is governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996). See Delgado v. Lewis, 223 F.3d 976, 979 (9th Cir. 2000) (the AEDPA applies to federal habeas petitions filed after April 1, 1996). Under the relevant provision of the AEDPA, a federal court may grant relief only if the state court's decision was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States. 28 U.S.C. §§ 2254(d)(1). 17 In Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000), the Supreme Court resolved much of the debate as to the interpretation of 28 U.S.C. §§ 2254(d)(1). See, e.g., Van Tran v. Lindsey, 212 F.3d 1143, 1149 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 121 S.Ct. 340 (2000). In Williams, the Supreme Court explained that the contrary to and unreasonable application clauses have distinct meanings and generally apply to different circumstances, although in certain instances the two concepts may overlap. See Williams, 529 U.S. at 404-12. 18 The parties agree that Wildman's habeas claims of ineffective assistance of counsel are governed by the clearly established federal law standard articulated in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). In Weighall v. Middle, 215 F.3d 1058, 1061-62 (9th Cir. 2000), we held that habeas petitions governed by Strickland should, in most instances, be analyzed under the unreasonable application clause of §§ 2254(d). 2 19 Under the unreasonable application clause, a federal court should grant the writ when the state court's application of clearly established federal law is objectively unreasonable. See Williams, 529 U.S. at 409. Although the Supreme Court did not define unreasonable in Williams, we have held that a judgment is objectively unreasonable  when it is clearly erroneous. See Van Tran, 212 F.3d at 1152-54. Petitioner cannot meet his burden by simply convincing the federal court that he has the better of two reasonable legal arguments. Id. at 1153. The court, however, must reverse a state court's decision as involving an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law when an independent review of the legal question leaves the court with afirm conviction that the state court committed clear error by rejecting the correct application of federal law and adopting an erroneous one. Id. at 1153-54. 20 The district court decision in this case was rendered before the Supreme Court's decision in Williams. As a result, the district court applied the reasonable jurist standard, which Williams expressly rejected. See 529 U.S. at 409. We must therefore decide whether the district court's judgment can be affirmed under current Supreme Court precedent. See Weighall, 215 F.3d at 1062 (affirming under Williams standard even though the district court used the reasonable jurist standard).