Court Opinion

ID: 9487329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:14:06.457058+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:12.757456
License: Public Domain

LUTTIG, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
Treating the express language of United States Supreme Court opinions as mere exhortation, rather than as binding interpre*905tation of law, the majority fundamentally alters for this circuit the Supreme Court’s “new rule” jurisprudence governing federal habeas review. In its stead, the majority substitutes a doctrine that requires federal courts to review on the merits every claim “predicated on” a prior precedent, whether or not the relief sought by the petitioner is dictated by that precedent. As its own opinion reveals, the majority thereby requires full merits review even of claims that are wholly without merit under precedent existing at the time a petitioner’s conviction became final. The majority thus eviscerates the Supreme Court’s decisions in. Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), and succeeding cases, and requires the kind of endless, intrusive review of state court judgments by federal habeas courts that it was the express purpose of Teague to arrest.
In adopting its new standard, the majority all but ignores the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Graham v. Collins, — U.S.—, 113 S.Ct. 892, 122 L.Ed.2d 260 (1993), which stands as directly contrary authority to the' majority’s new pronouncement, consigning Graham to a line of Supreme Court cases that, it informs us, has only “added more words,” but no guidance, to the “new rule” inquiry. Ante at 879. If this were not enough, the majority mischaracterizes at least four other Supreme Court eases, Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989), Stringer v. Black, — U.S. —, 112 S.Ct. 1130, 117 L.Ed.2d 367 (1992), Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U.S. 356, 108 S.Ct. 1853, 100 L.Ed.2d 372 (1988), and Shell v. Mississippi 498 U.S. 1, 111 S.Ct. 313, 112 L.Ed.2d 1 (1990), and overlooks a fifth, Clemons v. Mississippi 494 U.S. 738, 110 S.Ct. 1441, 108 L.Ed.2d 725 (1990), that stand between it and the new standard it announces. Because of the majority’s startling disregard for Supreme Court authority, and because of the enormous consequences for habeas review wrought by this disregard, I do not join the court’s opinion.
I.
A.
The Supreme Court has stated repeatedly that the rule sought by a habeas petitioner is “new,” and thus consideration of the underlying claim barred, unless reasonable jurists considering the petitionér’s claim at the time his conviction became final “ “would have felt compelled by existing precedent’ to rule in his favor.” Graham, 1— U.S. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 898 (emphasis added) (quoting Saffle v. Parks, 494 U.S. 484, 488, 110 S.Ct. 1257, 1260, 108 L.Ed.2d 415 (1990)). With similar frequency and clarity, the Court has declared, as a corollary, that it is in sufficient that prior decisions “inform, or even control or govern, the analysis of’ a petitioner’s claim. Parks, 494 U.S. at 491, 110 S.Ct. at 1262. See also Sawyer v. Smith, 497 U.S. 227, 236, 110 S.Ct. 2822, 2828, 111 L.Ed.2d 193 (1990) (quoting Parks with approval); Butler v. McKellar, 494 U.S. 407, 415, 110 S.Ct. 1212, 1217, 108 L.Ed.2d 347 (1990) (decision within the “logical compass” of an earlier decision may nonetheless announce new rule).
Without even a discussion of this established standard, and through the artifice of substituting terms of different meaning for the terms of the Supreme Court standard, the majority adopts for this circuit a standard that compels federal habeas review if a petitioner’s claim is “predicated on” prior decisions, or if prior decisions “dictate” the petitioner’s “challenge.” Ante at 883 (rejecting Commonwealth’s Teague argument because it “focuses on the most specific conclusion or holding Turner hopes we reach: that the limiting definition used in his case was constitutionally insufficient”). Thus, holding that Turner does not seek a new rule within the meaning of Teague because “Turner’s challenge is predicated on Godfrey [v. Georgia; 446 U.S. 420, 100 S.Ct. 1759, 64 L.Ed.2d 398 (1980) ],” ante at 882, and “Godfrey ... dictates Turner’s challenge,” id. at 881,1 the majority undertakes full merits review of a *906claim as to which it concedes Turner is unquestionably not entitled to relief.
Rejecting the majority’s standard, the Supreme Court has stated time and again that prior precedent must dictate the relief sought by the habeas petitioner in order to avoid Teague’s bar to federal review. See, e.g., Penry, 492 U.S. at 313, 109 S.Ct. at 2944 (“[W]e must determine, as a threshold matter, whether granting [Penry] the relief he seeks would create a ‘new rule.’ ” (emphasis added) (quoting Teague, 489 U.S. at 301, 109 S.Ct. at 1070)); Graham, — U.S. at—, 113 S.Ct. at 900 (“We cannot say that reasonable jurists considering petitioner’s claim in 1984 would have felt that these cases ‘dictated’ vacatur of petitioner’s death sentence.” (emphasis added) (quoting Teague, 489 U.S. at 301, 109 S.Ct. at 1070)); Graham, — U.S. at—, 113 S.Ct. at 902 (“This distinction leads us to conclude that neither Penry nor any of its predecessors ‘dictates’ the relief Graham seeks within the meaning required by Teague.” (emphasis added)); id. — U.S. at—, 113 S.Ct. at 903 (“We cannot say that all reasonable jurists would have deemed themselves compelled to accept Graham’s claim in 1984.” (emphasis added)); Stringer, — U.S. at—, 112 S.Ct. at 1135 (Teague inquiry asks “whether granting the relief sought [by the petitioner] would create a new rule because the prior decision is applied in a novel setting, thereby extending the precedent.” (emphasis added)); id. (“[A] ease decided after a petitioner’s conviction and sentence became final may not be the predicate for federal habeas corpus relief unless the decision was dictated by precedent .... ” (emphasis added)); Johnson v. Texas, —U.S.—,—, 113 S.Ct. 2658, 2668, 125 L.Ed.2d 290 (1993) (“In rejecting the contention that Penry dictated a ruling in the defendant’s favor [in Graham], we stated that .... ” (emphasis added)); id. (‘We also did not accept the view that the Lockett[ v. State of Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978)] and Eddings[ v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982)] line of cases, upon which Penry rested, compelled a holding for the defendant in Graham_” (emphasis added)); id. (“We concluded that, even with the benefit of the subsequent Penry decision, reasonable jurists at the time of Graham’s sentencing Vould [not] have deemed themselves compelled to accept Graham’s claim.’ ” (emphasis added) (quoting Graham, — U.S. at—, 113 S.Ct. at 903)); Johnson, — U.S. at—, 113 S.Ct. at 2668 (“Thus, we held that a ruling in favor of Graham would have required the impermissible application of a new rule under Teague.” (emphasis added)); id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2671 (“To rule in petitioner’s favor....”); Caspari v. Bohlen, —U.S.—,—, 114 S.Ct. 948, 953, 127 L.Ed.2d 236 (1994) (“The nonretroactivity principle prevents a federal court from granting habeas corpus relief to a state prisoner based on a rule announced after his conviction and sentence became final.” (emphasis added)).2
Indeed, even the dissenting Justices in the continuing debate over the contours of the “new rule” doctrine fully accept that the *907extant precedent must dictate a ruling in the petitioner’s favor. Justice Souter, for example, who authored the dissent in Graham, could not have been clearer as to this requirement of the “new rule” doctrine when he wrote in Wright v. West, — U.S.—, 112 S.Ct. 2482, 120 L.Ed.2d 225 (1992), that “[t]o survive Teague, [a rule] must be ‘old’ enough to have predated the finality of the prisoner’s conviction, and specific enough to dictate the rule on which the conviction may be held to be unlawful.” Id. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2501 (Souter, J., concurring) (emphasis added); see also id. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 2502 (Souter, J„ concurring) (“[I]n light of authority extant when his conviction became final, its unlawfulness must be apparent.” (emphasis added)). Justice Brennan also acknowledged that this is the standard governing federal habeas review. As he stated in Butler, the Court in Teague “declared that a federal court entertaining a state prisoner’s habeas petition generally may not reach the merits of the legal claim unless the court determines, as a threshold matter, that a favorable ruling on the claim would flow from the application of [pre-existing] legal •standards.” Butler, 494 U.S. at 417, 110 S.Ct. at 1218-19 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (emphasis added); see also id. at 417-18, 110 S.Ct. at 1219 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (“Put another way, a state prisoner can secure habeas relief only by showing that the state court’s rejection of the constitutional challenge was so clearly invalid under then-prevailing legal standards that the decision could not be defended by any reasonable jurist.” (emphasis added)); West, —■ U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2490 (“[A] federal habeas court ‘must defer to the state court’s decision rejecting the claim unless that decision is patently unreasonable.’” (emphasis added) (quoting Butler, 494 U.S. at 422, 110 S.Ct. at 1221 (Brennan, J., dissenting))).
The majority appears to believe that those Justices who have either dissented from or concurred separately in the Supreme Court’s Teague cases disagree with the Court’s majority that prior precedent must dictate the relief sought by the petitioner. This misunderstanding seems to stem from the majority’s failure to appreciate the nuance of the position taken by the dissent in Graham. See discussion infra at 909-11. In Graham, the dissent does state that “application of an existing precedent in a new factual setting will not amount to announcing a new rule.” Graham, — U.S. at—, 113 S.Ct. at 918 (Souter, J., dissenting). However, the dissent’s view that Graham sought only the application of Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 49 L.Ed.2d 929 (1976), was not based on the conclusion that resolution of the case, whether for or against Graham, would be by resort to the rule in Jurek, but rather on the twin conclusions that Graham’s evidence was not materially different from Pen-ry’s, see Graham, — U.S. at—, 113 S.Ct. at 920 (Souter, J., dissenting), and that both types of evidence received essentially the same degree of consideration in mitigation, see id. (“Graham’s claim that his evidence could receive only partial consideration is just as much a claim for application of the pre-existing rule demanding the opportunity for full effect as was Penry’s claim that his retardation could be given no effect under the second Texas special issue.”). It was for these reasons that the dissenters concluded Graham was indistinguishable from Penry. And “from [their] conclusion that the rule from which the petitioner sought to benefit in Penry was not ‘new,’ ” because Jurek, Lock-ett, and Eddings dictated the relief Penry sought, “it necessarily followed] that the rule petitioner Graham [sought] [was] not new either.” Id. See also West, — U.S. at —, 112 S.Ct. at 2497 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (“If a proffered factual distinction between the case under consideration and preexisting precedent does not change the force with which the precedent’s underlying principle applies, the distinction is not meaningful, and any deviation from precedent is not reasonable.”). The dissenters, in other words, disagreed with the majority only over the question of the generality with which a preexisting rule should be described.
In no Teague opinion — majority, concurring, or dissenting — has any Justice intimated, much less stated, that he or she might *908adopt the standard employed by the majority today.
The standard adopted and consistently applied by the Court does not, contrary to the majority’s belief, conflate the Teague inquiry and the decision on the merits. See ante at 887-88 n. 16. It is only if one does not accept the Court’s standard that prior precedent must dictate the relief sought (as the majority does not) that the Teague inquiry appears circular and thus to merge into a disposition on the merits. If one follows the standard announced by the Court, it could not be clearer that, while the Teague inquiry, like a disposition on the merits, requires a canvassing of the applicable legal authority and a consideration of the facts in light of that authority, it is an inquiry quite different from a disposition on the merits. Under Teague, the ultimate question is solely whether the state court judgment was reasonable under authority existing at the time the defendant’s conviction became final {viz, whether precedent dictated the relief sought), not whether the judgment was in fact correct as a matter of law. Thus, for example, one would not have to decide on the merits whether a limiting construction was constitutionally sufficient in order to know whether the claim that the instruction was unconstitutional was Tecw/Me-barred. Compare ante at 887-89 n. 16. One would only have to decide whether precedent dictated such a holding. In short, the majority fails to appreciate that to determine what reasonable jurists would have believed precedent dictated is simply not to determine the merits of the claim.
, B.
The requirement that prior precedent dictate a holding for the defendant was fashioned so as to “validate[ ] reasonable, good-faith interpretations of existing precedents made by state courts,” Butler, 494 U.S. at 414, 110 S.Ct. at 1217, the Court having determined that the mere threat of reversal of convictions obtained in clear contradiction of established law would adequately protect federal rights. The requirement serves this purpose by ensuring that federal courts on habeas do not second-guess reasonable state court judgments, whether by reversal or, as here, by affirmance wherein state court reasoning is critically examined and finely calibrated. Not only will the standard adopted by the majority here not serve this and the other purposes underlying the “new rule” doctrine, it will affirmatively disserve these purposes in ways that would be hard to overstate.
Applying the majority’s first locution of whether prior precedent “dictates the challenge,” even against the petitioner, alone will result in an inestimable number of cases in which federal courts will undertake full merits review of reasonable, and in many instances -unassailable, state court judgments. For in many cases that are not currently reviewable on federal habeas, the state court’s judgment, as the one we review in this case, will have been dictated by existing precedent. Any cases not subject to review under the “dictates the challenge” locution will undoubtedly be subject to review under the majority’s alternative formulation that the “new rule” doctrine does not bar consideration of any claim “predicated on” prior easelaw. This formulation will render reviewable on habeas essentially every claim, for almost every habeas petitioner necessarily “predicates” his claims on prior easelaw. Cf. Penny, 492 U.S. at 353, 109 S.Ct. at 2965 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“In a system based on precedent and stare decisis, it is the tradition to find each decision ‘inherent’ in earlier cases_”).
These consequences of the majority’s decision underscore the magnitude of its error. The very purpose of Teague was to halt federal habeas review even of state court interpretations of federal law that ultimately prove incorrect, provided they are reasonable. Yet under the majority’s reasoning, federal courts will be reviewing and deciding on the merits countless state court judgments that are not only reasonable but, as here, indisputably correct.
The standard adopted by the majority thus will completely frustrate the principles of finality, comity toward state judicial tribunals, see Teague, 489 U.S. at 310,109 S.Ct. at 1075 (“[sjtate courts are understandably frustrated” when federal habeas courts re*909verse their reasonable rulings on federal law) (quoting Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 128 n. 33, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 1572 n. 33, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982)), and respect for state prosecutorial authorities, see Teague, 489 U.S. at 310, 109 S.Ct. at 1075 (federal review should not require states “to marshal resources in order to keep in prison defendants whose trials and appeals conformed to then-existing constitutional standards”), that prompted adoption of Teague’s “new rule” doctrine in the first place.
II.
If any of the Supreme Court’s Teague cases had even hinted at the standard applied by the majority, its action would not be so disconcerting. However, in order to forge its new Teague standard, the majority must ignore the Supreme Court precedent that proves its error and misread or overlook at least five other Supreme Court precedents that foreclose or otherwise cast doubt on the standard it adopts.
A.
Most disturbingly, the majority simply refuses to directly confront Graham, a case that confirms that the majority has misstated and misapplied the Court’s “new rule” doctrine, and reveals that it has seriously misread Penry, upon which it extensively relies.
In Graham, the petitioner sought vacatur of his death sentence on the grounds that Texas’ “special issues” procedure for imposing the death penalty precluded his jury from giving mitigating effect to his evidence of youth, deprived upbringing, and redeeming character traits, in contravention of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Jurek, Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978), and Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982). Specifically, Graham contended that Texas’ capital sentencing scheme, which required juries to impose the death penalty if they answered three “special issues” questions in the affirmative, did not permit the jury to give mitigating effect to his evidence.3 Graham’s unsuccessful Teague argument before the Supreme Court sounded much like Turner’s argument before us, in that Graham claimed that he was simply seeking an “application” of prior law:
He asks only what was granted in Penry; that the promise of Jurek be redeemed, and that the Court reaffirm the authority — from Woodson[ v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976)] to Lockett and Eddings — on which Penry rests.
Reply Brief of Petitioner at II.A., Graham v. Collins, — U.S. —, 113 S.Ct. 892, 122 L.Ed.2d 260 (1993). Cf ante at 886 (“God-frey upheld the statutory vileness factor on the basis of ‘assurances’ that the sentencer’s discretion would be channelled by constitutionally sufficient standards. Turner ‘argues that those assurances were not fulfilled....’”).
Consistent with its prior cases, the Graham Court stated the governing inquiry as whether reasonable jurists would have believed themselves compelled by the prior precedent to rule in petitioner’s favor:
Thus, unless reasonable jurists hearing petitioner’s claim at the time his conviction became final “would have felt compelled by existing precedent’’ to rule in his favor, we are barred from doing so now.
Graham, — U.S. at—, 113 S.Ct. at 898 (emphasis added) (quoting Parks, 494 U.S. at 488, 110 S.Ct. at 1260). Then, after reciting the “pre-existing normative rule” of Jurek, Lockett, and Eddings, that it was unconstitutional for a state to foreclose completely a jury’s consideration of mitigating evidence, the Court concluded that reasonable jurists considering Graham’s claim at the time his conviction became final would not have felt that these cases “ ‘dictated ’ vacatur of petitioner’s death sentence.” Graham, — U.S. at—, 113 S.Ct. at 900 (quoting Teague, 489 U.S. at 301, 109 S.Ct. at 1070). “To the contrary,” the Court reasoned,
*910to most readers at least, these cases reasonably would have been read as upholding the constitutional validity of Texas’ capital sentencing scheme with respect to mitigating evidence and otherwise ... [because] it permitted petitioner to place before the jury whatever mitigating evidence he could show, including his age.
Graham, — U.S. at ——, 113 S.Ct. at 900. Thus, because the caselaw existing when Graham’s conviction became final would reasonably have been understood as dictating not the relief Graham sought, but rather an affirmance of his conviction and sentence, the Court held that Graham sought a new rule and therefore that his claim was Teague-barred. Compare ante at 886 (“In sum, when we apply an extant normative rule to a new set of facts ... generally we do not announce a new constitutional rule of criminal procedure for purposes of Teague.” (emphasis added)).
Graham thus confirms that the Supreme Court has given full effect both to its unambiguous directive that a claim is barred unless a holding in the defendant’s favor would be dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant’s conviction became final, and to the corollary that a claim merely “predicated on” or governed by prior precedent is not saved from the sweep of the “new rule” doctrine.
If there were any question that this is the standard applied by the Supreme Court, it is laid to rest by the Graham Court’s discussion, and ultimate distinction, of Penry. See Johnson, — U.S. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 2668-69 (noting differences between Graham and Penry). Penry, like Graham, challenged the application of Texas’ then-existing death penalty statute. Penry, as did Graham, sought vacatur of his death sentence on the grounds that Texas’ “special issues” death penalty procedure precluded his jury from giving full effect to his mitigating evidence, in violation of Jurek, Lockett, and Eddings. At a general level, Penry’s and Graham’s arguments were virtually identical; they differed only with respect to the specific type of mitigating evidence, the consideration of which each claimed had been foreclosed from juror consideration. In Penry’s case, the evidence was of his organic brain damage and history of childhood abuse; in Graham’s, the evidence was of his youth, deprived upbringing, and redeeming character traits.
In determining that Penry (as well as Ju-rek, Lockett, and Eddings) did not “dictate” granting Graham’s requested relief, the Court distinguished Penry (as well as Lockett and Eddings) as cases in which “the constitutional defect lay in the fact that relevant mitigating evidence was placed beyond the effective reach of the sentencer.” Graham, — U.S. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 902 (emphasis added); see also Johnson, — U.S. at- -, 113 S.Ct. at 2668-69 (expressly noting Graham’s distinction of Penry on the ground that Penry’s mitigating evidence had not been given effect at his sentencing, whereas Graham’s had; distinguishing Johnson’s case from Penry’s on same ground). Unlike Graham’s (and Jurek’s) evidence, the Court explained, Penry’s evidence — that he suffered from organic brain damage and that he had been physically abused as a child— could be given only “aggravating” effect in the context of the Texas scheme. Graham, — U.S. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 901.
On the basis of this distinction, i.e., that Penry’s jury was not, but Graham’s was, permitted to consider mitigating evidence as such, the Court concluded that although granting Penry’s relief did not announce a rule new from that in Jurek, granting Graham’s requested relief would. See id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 902 (“This distinction leads us to conclude that neither Penry nor any of its predecessors ‘dictates’ the relief Graham seeks within the meaning required by Teag-ue.” (emphasis added)); see also Johnson, — U.S. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 2668-69. And, in a passage that reconfirms that the focus of the Teague inquiry is on the relief sought by the petitioner, the Court observed,
*911even if Penry reasonably could be read to suggest that Graham’s mitigating evidence was not adequately considered under the former Texas procedures, that is not the relevant inquiry under Teague. Rather, the determinative question is whether reasonable jurists reading the case law that existed in 1984 could have concluded that Graham’s sentencing was not constitutionally infirm. We cannot say that all reasonable jurists would have deemed themselves compelled to accept Graham’s claim in 1984.... The ruling Graham seeks, therefore, would be a “new rule” under Teague.
Graham, — U.S. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 902-03 (emphasis added).4
Although the Graham majority and dissent disagreed over whether the differences in the type of mitigating evidence offered by Penry and Graham, and the opportunity that each petitioner’s jury had to consider that evidence, were sufficient to implicate a new rule in holding for Graham, the dissent never challenged the fundamental premise of Graham and the Court’s prior cases that Teague bars consideration of a claim where the defendant could not even have prevailed on the merits under the law existing at the time his conviction became final. See discussion supra at 907-08; see also West, — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2501 (Souter, J., concurring) (rule is new unless it “dictate[s] the rule on which the conviction may be held to be un lawful” (emphasis added)).
Graham, in short, proves that for Teague purposes the majority has a different understanding of the concept of “applying” prior precedent than does the Supreme Court. The majority holds that a new rule is not created if prior precedent is determinative of the result in the case — whether in the petitioner’s favor or against him. The Supreme Court could not have been clearer that avoidance of a new rule is possible only where the prior precedent resolves the case in the petitioner’s favor. If the Supreme Court had understood the concept as does the majority here, the holding in Graham would have been different.
B.
Graham also demonstrates how-the majority misreads Penry and why the majority mistakenly believes Penry supports its understanding of the “new rule” doctrine. Because the majority never comes to grips with Graham, it does not recognize that the Court’s holding in Penry, that the petitioner did not seek a new rule, rested on the conclusion that Jurek dictated the resolution of Penry’s claim in his favor, and not on the fact that Jurek in some more general sense governed resolution of the ease.5 That this *912was the Court’s reasoning in Penry is evident, if from nothing else, from the fact that the Court specifically framed the question before it as “whether granting [Penry] the relief he seeks would create a ‘new rule,’” Penry, 492 U.S. at 313, 109 S.Ct. at 2944 (citation omitted), and resolved this question in the same terms, id. at 319, 109 S.Ct. at 2947 (“[I]n light of the assurances upon which Jurek was based, we conclude that the relief Penry seeks does not ‘imposte] a new obligation’' on the State of Texas.” (emphasis added) (citation omitted)).
Therefore, contrary to the majority’s belief, Penry was- not a “novel” decision, see ante at 884; nor does it “demonstrate! ] .. .• the critical distinction between the extension of an existing rule on collateral review and the mere application of an existing normative rule ... to a new set of facts,” id. at 884 (footnote omitted). Rather, as the Court said in Penry itself, see 492 U.S. at 314-19, 109 S.Ct. at 2944-47, and as it reaffirmed in Johnson, Penry was a narrow decision entailing a straightforward application of Jurek; Lockett, and Eddings so as to provide Penry with the relief to which he was entitled under those cases:
The Court [in Penry ] was most explicit in rejecting the dissent’s concern that Penry was seeking a new rule, in contravention of Teague v. Lane. Indeed, the Court characterized its holding in Penry as a straightforward application of our earlier rulings in Jurek, Lockett, and Eddings, making it clear that these cases can stand together with Penry.
We confirmed this limited view of Penry and its scope in Graham v. Collins.
Johnson, — U.S. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 2667-68 (citations omitted). Had the majority here not ignored Graham, it would have understood Penry, as does the Supreme Court, as a case where a new rule was not implicated because the relief sought was dictated by prior precedent, specifically Jurek.
III.
The majority compounds the error caused by its unexplained refusal to consider Graham, and its resulting misreading of Penry, by misconstruing Stringer and Cartwright, the Court’s cases that have addressed God-frey challenges in the context of Teague’s, “new rule” doctrine.
A.
In a statement that betrays the extent of its departure from Supreme Court precedent, the majority says that, “Stringer ... teaches that Teague does not bar a habeas petitioner’s invocation of Godfrey to challenge the constitutional sufficiency of limiting instructions or appellate review if a state uses a vague aggravating factor.” Ante at 881 (emphasis added); see also id. at 881 (the Supreme Court held in Stringer “that the application of Godfrey does not amount to a new rule for purposes of Teague ”). Stringer, of course, teaches nothing of the sort; rather, Stringer holds only that the application of Godfrey in the context of the particular facts of Cartwright and Clemons did not require announcement of new rules. Stringer, in short, was an unexceptional application of the Court’s consistently-applied standard that granting a habeas petitioner his requested relief will not “extend” Godfrey so as to announce a new rule when that relief, ie., a holding in favor of the defendant, is “dictated” by Godfrey. This is brought into relief, as in Penry, by the Court’s own statement of the issue before it, namely, “whether granting the relief sought [by the petitioner] would create a new rule because the prior decision is applied in a novel setting, thereby extending the precedent.” Stringer, — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 1135.
1.
The question before the Court in Stringer was whether either Cartwright or Clemons *913announced a new rule for purposes of Teag-ue.6 The Court held that neither did.
The facts and circumstances in Cartwright were virtually indistinguishable from those in Godfrey. In Cartwright, the Court found that “the language of the Oklahoma aggravating circumstance at issue — ‘especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel’ — gave no more guidance than the ‘outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman’ language that the jury returned in its verdict in Godfrey,” and that “the conclusion of the Oklahoma court that the events recited by it ‘adequately supported the jury’s finding’ was indistinguishable from the action of the Georgia court in Godfrey, which failed to cure the unfettered discretion of the jury and to satisfy the commands of the Eighth Amendment.” Cartwright, 486 U.S. at 363-64,108 S.Ct. at 1859.
Stringer summarily held that Cartwright did not announce a rule “new” from Godfrey precisely because the instructions on the aggravating circumstance in Cartwright and Godfrey were as close to identical as was possible given the differing sentencing contexts in Oklahoma and Georgia. Given these similarities, reasonable jurists reading the caselaw existing at the time of Cartwright’s sentencing, which included Godfrey, would have felt compelled to rule in Cartwright’s favor. That is, Godfrey dictated the relief sought by Cartwright. Compare Graham, — U.S. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 902.
Put another way, if Teague had been decided before Cartwright, and if Oklahoma had invoked Teague in its argument before the Supreme Court, the Court would have held that reasonable jurists could not have concluded that Cartwright’s jury instructions complied with Godfrey, and thus would have been “compelled to rule in his favor.” As the Tenth Circuit noted in Cartwright, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals had dropped from its so-called limiting construction the one phrase that the Supreme Court had previously approved as constitutionally limiting an analogous, vague aggravating factor, i.e., “the conscienceless or pitiless crime which is unnecessarily torturous to the victim.” Cartwright v. Maynard, 822 F.2d 1477, 1489 (10th Cir.1987) (citing Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, 255-56, 96 S.Ct. 2960, 2968, 49 L.Ed.2d 913 (1976)).
Although the majority seems to think otherwise, the fact that the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals had previously approved unconstitutionally vague limiting instructions only demonstrates that the Oklahoma court’s prior actions were objectively “unreasonable” for Teague purposes, just as in Stringer the Fifth Circuit had been objectively “unreasonable” in holding that Godfrey did not apply to Mississippi’s capital punishment scheme. See Stringer, — U.S. at—, 112 S.Ct. at 1140 (“The short answer ... is that the Fifth Circuit made a serious mistake in Evans v. Thigpen [809 F.2d 239 (5th Cir. 1987)] and Johnson v. Thigpen [806 F.2d 1243 (5th Cir.1986)] [in so concluding].”). See also supra note 5.
2.
Contrary to the majority’s impression, the significant holding in Stringer was not that Cartwright did not announce a new rule. Mississippi had conceded this point, see Stringer, — U.S. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 1135, which renders curious the majority’s assertion that “[t]he State of Mississippi invoked Teague, arguing that the petitioner could not rely on Cartwright because that decision was announced after his conviction became final.” Ante at 881. And the Supreme Court deemed the state’s concession “wise”:
In the case now before us Mississippi does not even argue that [Cartwright] itself announced a new rule. To us this appears *914a wise concession. Godfrey and [Cartwright] did indeed involve somewhat different language. But it would be a mistake to conclude that the vagueness ruling of Godfrey was limited to the precise language before us in that case. In applying Godfrey to the language before us in [Cartwright ], we did not “brea[k] new ground.”
Stringer, — U.S. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 1135 (quoting Butler, 494 U.S. at 412, 110 S.Ct. at 1216). Rather, the significant holding of Stringer, a holding the majority never even mentions, was that Clemons did not announce a rule new from Godfrey either.
In Stringer, Mississippi contended that Clemons, a direct review ease decided after Stringer’s conviction became final, had announced a new rule, and thus was unavailable to. Stringer as authority in support of the relief he sought. The state argued that reasonable jurists would not have believed that the Clemons holding was dictated by prior precedent because Mississippi required aggravating factors to be weighed against mitigating circumstances in determining whether to impose the death penalty, unlike Oklahoma and Georgia, which required only that a- single aggravating factor support a death penalty. Stringer, — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 1136.
The Supreme Court rejected the state’s contention, noting that if anything, Godfrey clearly applied in a “weighing” state such as Mississippi:
As a matter of federal law, moreover, the view of the Mississippi Supreme Court that Godfrey’s dictates apply to its capital sentencing procedure is correct. Indeed, it is so evident that the issue was not even mentioned in Clemons.
Id. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 1139. In a weighing state, the Court reasoned, the effect of an invalid aggravating factor cannot be cured without either trial or appellate reweighing, because it cannot be known if, absent the invalid factor, the jury would have weighed the aggravating factors and mitigating circumstances in the way it initially did:
When the weighing process itself has been skewed, only constitutional harmless-error analysis or reweighing at the trial or appellate level suffices to guarantee that the defendant received an individualized sentence.
Id. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 1137. In the end, then, the Court concluded that the different roles played by the aggravating factor in the Georgia, Oklahoma, and Mississippi schemes “underscore[ ] the applicability of Godfrey and [Cartwright ] to the Mississippi system.” Id.
The relevant facts in Clemons, therefore, were no different from those in Godfrey. In both cases, the death penalty had been imposed on the basis of an invalid aggravating factor. See Clemons, 494 U.S. at 742-43, 110 S.Ct. at 1445 (“[T]he trial court instructed [Clemons’] jury in the bare terms of the Mississippi [aggravating] statute.”). And in neither case was that factor cured on appeal: In Godfrey, there was essentially no review at all, while in Clemons there was no evidence that the Mississippi Supreme Court had undertaken the reweighing that was constitutionally necessary under a scheme such as Mississippi’s. Id. at 751-52, 110 S.Ct. at 1449-50. For these reasons, the Court held that Godfrey dictated the relief sought by Clemons, and therefore that Clemons had not announced a new rule. See Stringer, — U.S. at—, 112 S.Ct. at 1136-40; see also id. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 1144 (Souter, J., dissenting) (criticizing .majority for concluding “that the outcome in Cartwright and Clemons was dictated” by existing precedent).
3.
Stringer, in sum, does not support the decision reached by the majority. Stringer did not hold, as the majority assumes, that neither Clemons or Cartwright announced a new rule because their claims were “predicated on” Godfrey, or because Godfrey “dictated” their “challenges.” The Court held that no new rule had been created in either case because the facts underlying each petitioner’s claim were materially indistinguishable from those underlying Godfrey’s claim and therefore Godfrey dictated the relief sought by each.
If the facts and circumstances underlying Turner’s claim were as indistinguishable *915from those underlying Godfrey’s claim as were Cartwright’s and Clemons’, Godfrey would likewise dictate the relief Turner seeks. Obviously, however, they are not. See discussion infra at 916-19. Compare ante at 882 (“The similarities between Cartwright and the instant case are striking.”).
B.
Next, in order to reconcile Cartwright with its misstatement of the Stringer rationale, the majority must omit the relevant facts of Cartwright. The majority recites that “Cartwright’s sentencing jury was given a limiting instruction beyond the bare terms of the heinousness factor,” id. at-(citing Cartwright v. Maynard, 822 F.2d 1477, 1488 (10th Cir.1987)), and that “the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed after applying a limiting construction to the facts of Cartwright’s ease, focusing on the ‘manner’ in which the murder was committed,” id. (citing Cartwright v. Oklahoma, 695 P.2d 548, 554 (Okla.Crim.App.1985)). Both statements, while, literally correct, are incomplete in the only respects that are relevant.
As the record in Cartwright discloses, and the Supreme Court in Stringer held, the Cartwright jury instructions and appellate review were indistinguishable in substance from the instructions and review held to be inadequate in Godfrey. The so-called “limiting” instruction of the Oklahoma aggravating factor for murders that were “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel,” which the majority omits, reads as follows:
The term ‘heinous’ means extremely wicked or shockingly evil; ‘atrocious’ means outrageously wicked and vile; ‘cruel’ means pitiless, or designed to inflict a high degree of pain, utter indifference to, or enjoyment of, the sufferings of others.
Cartwright, 822 F.2d at 1488. As the Supreme Court explained in Stringer, “applying] the same analysis and reasoning [of Godfrey ],” the Court in Cartwright held that “th[is] language gave no more guidance than did the statute in Godfrey.” Stringer, — U.S. at—, 112 S.Ct. at 1135. Or, as Justice Marshall later observed, Cartwright’s instruction provided no limitation whatsoever on the jury’s discretion: “[Ljike ‘heinous’ and ‘atrocious’ themselves, the phrases ‘extremely wicked or shockingly evil’ and ‘outrageously wicked and vile’ could be used by ‘“[a] person of ordinary sensibility [to] fairly characterize almost every murder.” ’ ” Shell, 498 U.S. at 3, 111 S.Ct. at 314 (Marshall, J., .concurring) (quoting Cartwright, 486 U.S. at 363, 108 S.Ct. at 1858 (quoting in turn Godfrey, 446 U.S. at 428-29, 100 S.Ct. at 1765)) (emphasis added in Shell ).7 Cartwright’s instructions therefore were unconstitutional under Godfrey because they could not reasonably be said to have provided a “principled way to distinguish [a] case, in which the death penalty was imposed, from the many cases in which it was not.” Godfrey, 446 U.S. at 433, 100 S.Ct. at 1767.
Cartwright’s appellate review was similarly inadequate. In its opinion affirming the Tenth Circuit,’the Supreme Court characterized that review as follows: “[T]he Oklahoma court simply had reviewed all of the circumstances of the murder and decided whether the facts made out' the aggravating circumstance,” which itself was unconstitutionally vague. Cartwright, 486 U.S. at 360, 108 S.Ct. at 1857 (citing Cartwright, 822 F.2d at 1491). The Court continued: “[T]he conclusion of the Oklahoma court that the events recited by it ‘adequately supported the jury’s finding’ was indistinguishable from the action of the Georgia court in Godfrey, which failed to cure the unfettered discretion of the jury and to satisfy the commands of the Eighth Amendment.” Cartwright, 486 U.S. at 364, 108 S.Ct. at 1859 (emphasis added). Thus, what the majority describes as the Oklahoma appellate court’s “limiting construction [applied] to the facts of Cartwright’s case, focusing on the ‘manner’ in *916which the murder was committed,” ante at 881, was, under Godfrey, no limitation at all.
Cartwright therefore is no different from Clemons (or, in principle, from Penry). And all three are properly understood simply as cases in which new rules were not announced because the facts and circumstances presented by the petitioner in each were so close to those present in the prior precedent that the prior decisions, when applied, dictated the relief each petitioner sought. Of course, the similarities between Godfrey, Cartwright, and Clemons, on the one hand, and Turner’s case on the other, are anything but “striking.” Compare ante at 882.
C.
Finally, as it mistakenly believes it must to remain consistent, the majority misreads Shell in much the same way that it misreads Stringer and Cartwright, and for this reason, its attempt to summon Shell in support of its conclusion that any claim “predicated on” Godfrey is not Teague-barred is ill-fated.
The Court in Shell held that the aggravating factor challenged by the petitioner was the same as that invalidated in Cartwright and that the limiting construction was, as Justice Marshall noted, “nearly identical” to the instruction given by the trial court in that case. Shell, 498 U.S. at 2, 111 S.Ct. at 314 (Marshall, J., concurring). In sum, “there [was] no legally tenable distinction ... between [Shell ] and Maynard v. Cartwright.” Id. at 4, 111 S.Ct. at 314. Given that there were no material differences between the jury instructions and appellate reviews in Shell and Cartwright, there is not the requisite factual predicate for the majority’s conclusion that Shell supports the newly announced standard that the prior precedent must only dictate the result in the ease, not the relief sought. Shell is analytically no different from Clemons, or from Cartwright, freed from the context of Teague. Thus, any attempt to divine the' majority’s standard from the reasoning in Shell is futile.
D.
The majority appears ultimately to have been misled by the coincidence that in all of the Court’s Godfrey cases discussed above, the Court held that Godfrey dictated resolution of the petitioner’s claim. From this the majority infers that the disposition of a God-frey challenge can never announce a new rule. Its error, of course, is its failure to understand that the holdings in all of these cases rested on the Court’s conclusion that the facts underlying each petitioner’s claim— unlike those underlying Turner’s claim— were indistinguishable from the facts in God-frey, and therefore that Godfrey dictated the relief sought by each petitioner.
IV.
A.
When the Supreme Court’s precedents are properly read and applied, it is obvious that Godfrey cannot possibly be said to dictate the relief Turner seeks, because the facts underlying Turner’s claim are precisely the opposite of, and therefore ipso facto distinguishable from, those underlying Godfrey’s claim. See West, — U.S. at—, 112 S.Ct. at 2497 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (“[F]ederal courts must make an independent evaluation of the precedent existing at the time the state conviction became final in order to determine whether the case under consideration is meaningfully distinguishable.”). This is so even though, in the words of the majority’s standard, Turner’s claim may be said to be “predicated on” Godfrey and his “challenge” “dictated” by that case. See Parks, 494 U.S. at 491, 110 S.Ct. at 1262 (holding that it is not enough that the prior decision “inform, or even control or govern” analysis of the petitioner’s claim).
The distinctions between Godfrey and the case sub judice, which perforce even the majority must recognize, are evident upon the most cursory review. The only instructions that Godfrey’s jury received were that it could impose the death penalty if it found that his offense “was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim.” Godfrey, 446 U.S. at 422, 100 S.Ct. at 1762 (quoting Ga.Code § 27-2534.1(b)(7) (1978)). God-*917frey’s trial judge made no effort to define further the terms “aggravated battery” or “depravity of mind.” See Godfrey, 446 U.S. at 426, 100 S.Ct. at 1764. When Godfrey’s jury imposed the death sentence, it specified only that “the offense of murder was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible and inhuman.” Id. And in affirming Godfrey’s sentence, the Georgia Supreme Court stated merely that the jury’s phraseology was “not objectionable,” Godfrey v. State, 243 Ga. 302, 253 S.E.2d 710, 718 (1979), and that the evidence supported the jury’s finding of the statutory aggravating circumstance, id. 253 S.E.2d at 717-18.
By contrast, Turner’s jury was instructed on both the “aggravated battery” and “depravity of mind” prongs of Virginia’s “vileness” aggravating factor. The trial court informed the jury that “an aggravated battery is a battery which qualitatively and quantitatively is more culpable than the minimum necessary to accomplish an act of murder,” J.A. at 517-P, and that “depravity of mind is a degree of moral turpitude and psychical debasement surpassing that inherent in the definition of ordinary legal malice and premeditation,” id. at 517-Q. It further instructed that “[mjaliciously means intentionally doing a wrongful act to another without legal excuse or justification.” Id. at 517-I. These instructions on “aggravated battery” and “depravity of mind” tracked the Virginia Supreme Court’s limiting constructions set forth in Smith v. Commonwealth, 219 Va. 455, 477, 248 S.E.2d 135, 149 (1978), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 967, 99 S.Ct. 2419, 60 L.Ed.2d 1074 (1979), which have been consistently applied without reversal.
Turner’s appellate review, too, was quite different from Godfrey’s. In stark contrast to the substantively meaningless appellate review of Godfrey’s sentence, the Virginia Supreme Court, on Turner’s direct appeal of his currently challenged sentence, applied the limiting constructions from Smith to Turner’s facts, to hold that his crime both constituted an “aggravated battery” and demonstrated “depravity of mind.” Turner v. Commonwealth, 234 Va. 543, 553, 364 S.E.2d 483, 489, cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1017, 108 S.Ct. 1756, 100 L.Ed.2d 218 (1988) (“We think that the evidence of Turner’s conduct in killing his victim meets [the Smith definition of aggravated battery] clearly and completely.... We think that the evidence of Turner’s conduct in killing his victim also meets [the Smith definition of depravity of mind] clearly and completely.”).
As the majority’s own opinion shows, reasonable jurists considering Turner’s claims at the time his conviction became final would have concluded that his sentencing procedures easily satisfied Godfrey's, commands. See ante at 891-94. By requiring that the jurors find factors above and beyond those present in all intentional killings, Turner’s jury instructions reasonably could be said to have satisfied the plurality’s commands in Godfrey that aggravating factors be limited so that they are not applicable to every murder, and that juries be provided with a “principled way to distinguish [a] case, in which the death penalty was ‘ imposed, from the many cases in which it was not.” Godfrey, 446 U.S. at 433, 100 S.Ct. at 1767; see also Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, 255, 96 S.Ct. 2960, 2968, 49 L.Ed.2d 913 (1976) (plurality opinion) (stating that the Florida Supreme Court had imposed a constitutional construction on Florida’s “heinousness” aggravating factor by limiting it to the “ ‘conscienceless or pitiless crime which is unnecessarily torturous to the victim’ ” (quoting State v. Dixon, 283 So.2d 1, 9 (Fla.1973))). In fact, that Turner’s instructions met Godfrey’s, commands is the import of this circuit’s 1985 decision in Turner v. Bass, 753 F.2d 342, 353 (4th Cir.1985), rev’d on other grounds sub nom. Turner v. Murray, 476 U.S. 28, 106 S.Ct. 1683, 90 L.Ed.2d 27 .(1986), which rejected Turner’s similar Godfrey challenge to the Smith limiting construction of aggravated battery.
So too, by applying the Smith limiting constructions to the facts of Turner’s case, the Virginia Supreme Court performed exactly the appellate review that one reasonably would think Godfrey required. Compare Cartwright, 486 U.S. at 363,108 S.Ct. at 1859 (“The affirmance of the death sentencé by the Georgia Supreme Court [in Godfrey ] was held to be insufficient to cure the jury’s unchanneled discretion because that court *918failed to apply its previously recognized limiting construction of the aggravating circumstance.”)- Given that Turner shot Smith twice while Smith lay helpless from the first shot to his head, and assertedly killed Smith merely for “snitching” on him, compare God-frey, 446 U.S. at 433, 100 S.Ct. at 1767 (victims killed instantly from shots to head), there is no doubt that a “reasonable jurist” would have concluded that the state court’s assessment was the product of conscientious and meaningful appellate review. As a panel of this court said in Turner v. Bass, “the murder here was cold-blooded and calculated, involving no element of emotional trauma as was present in Godfrey. Turner initially shot Smith for no reason at all. While Smith lay alive but helpless and while Officer Bain pleaded, Turner fired two shots into Smith’s chest.” Turner, 753 F.2d at 353.
Contrary to Turner’s contention, constitutionally inadequate appellate review is not demonstrated by the mere statistic that the Virginia Supreme Court has not overturned a single death sentence based on the “vileness” factor. Without more, the statistic could as easily reflect that Virginia juries impose, and its courts affirm, capital punishment based on the ‘Vileness” factor only in the most gruesome circumstances. The endless par-entheticals in Turner’s brief summarizing the hideous fact patterns of those crimes appear to bear out just this.8 It is only regrettable that the state of capital punishment law is such that one legitimately can argue against *919the death penalty, as does Turner, on the ground that his crime “did not involve rape, torture, abuse of the body or other mutilation,” but merely the intentional, coldblooded murder of another human being. Brief of Appellant at 51. Cf Godfrey.9
Because the Smith limiting constructions given to Turner’s jury and applied by the Virginia Supreme Court — unlike the Oklahoma procedures in Cartwright, or the Mississippi procedures in Clemons — fully satisfied what in 1988 reasonable jurists would have thought were Godfrey’s commands, vacating Turner’s death sentence on the basis of Godfrey clearly would “break new ground.” Whereas Godfrey “dictated” a holding for the defendants in Cartwright and Clemons, it just as clearly “dictates” a holding for the Commonwealth here.10
The Jurek/Penry/Graham line reached the same analytic conclusion conversely. Because Graham’s evidence was more «like Ju-rek’s than like Penry’s, and Jurek had held that such evidence was given constitutionally adequate consideration under the Texas death penalty scheme, extending Penry to cover Graham’s mitigating evidence would have necessitated “a wholesale abandonment of Jurek.” See Graham, — U.S. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 902. So also, declaring Turner’s sentence un constitutional would require not merely an “application” of Godfrey, nor even its “extension,” but really its repudiation.11 It would require a holding that the class of death-eligible defendants in Virginia must be narrowed even further than Godfrey reasonably indicated, or that the Virginia Supreme Court’s review of death sentences should be even more discriminating than Godfrey reasonably suggested. Such a holding would, quite obviously, impose a “new obligation,” Teague, 489 U.S. at 301, 109 S.Ct. 1060, on the Commonwealth of Virginia. See Butler, 494 U.S. at 412, 110 S.Ct. at 1216 (“A new decision that explicitly overrules an earlier holding obviously ‘breaks new ground’ or ‘imposes a new obligation.’ ”). Equally certain, it would announce a new rule of constitutional law.12
*920B.
In deciding that Turner is not seeking the benefit of a new rule, the majority endorses for this circuit, see ante at 885, the suggestion of Justice Kennedy in West that there are certain types of constitutional rules— rules “designed for the specific purpose of evaluating a myriad of factual contexts”— that establish general standards “which of necessity require[ ] a case-by-case examination of the evidence,” and the application of which therefore only infrequently yields “a result so novel that it forges a new rule, one not dictated by precedent.” West, — U.S. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 2499 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (emphasis added). Such rules, it seems, may be viewed as allowing for exceptions to the general Teague analysis outlined above. Even were I to agree with Justice Kennedy’s observations, I would have to disagree with the majority’s assertion that the rule of Godfrey, like the sufficiency of the evidence rule of Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), which Justice Kennedy discussed in West, is one of these rules of general application. See ante at 885-87.
Certainly the rule of Godfrey is no more expansive than the rule of Jurek and Penry, namely that in channeling a defendant’s use of mitigating evidence, the state may not foreclose its mitigating effect altogether. Indeed, the Godfrey rule is probably less expansive than the Jurek/Penry rule, because mitigating evidence certainly comes in more forms than limiting constructions of unconstitutionally vague aggravating factors. See, e.g., Clark v. Collins, 19 F.3d 959, 963 (5th Cir.1994) (sexual abuse); Crank v. Collins, 19 F.3d 172, 175 (5th Cir.1994) (trustworthiness, well-disciplined nature, caring and loving character, family values); Motley v. Collins, 18 F.3d 1223, 1229 (5th Cir.1994) (physical, sexual, and psychological abuse by parents, including father’s “squashing” defendant’s pet gerbils to death in front of him); Madden v. Collins, 18 F.3d 304, 307-08 (5th Cir.1994) (dyslexia and “personality avoidance disorder”). Since Graham — which, significantly, Justice Kennedy joined — establishes that the Jurek/Penry rule is not one of the general rules described by Justice Kennedy in West, it follows that the narrower rule of Godfrey cannot be such a rule.13 See also Graham, — U.S. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 920 (Souter, J., dissenting) (opining that majority’s distinction of Penry on basis of differences in type of mitigating evidence “flies in the face” of Justice Kennedy’s West concurrence). Justice Kennedy’s own opinion in West confirms as much, by nowhere suggesting that Godfrey, Stringer, or indeed any case in the Godfrey line, qualifies as a rule of general application, notwithstanding that his full discussion of general application rules in West, which included an analysis of Stringer, offered him ample opportunity to do so. See West, — U.S. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 2499 (Kennedy, J., concurring).14
*921V.
Because I conclude that reasonable jurists hearing Turner’s “vileness” claims in 1988 would, if anything, have felt compelled by existing precedent to rule against him on those claims, and therefore that granting his proposed relief and holding his death sentence unconstitutional would announce a new rule of constitutional law, I believe that we are barred from considering those claims under Teague. I cannot, therefore, join the majority’s opinion, which holds to the contrary.

. The holding in Bohlen, which is the Court’s most recent Teague decision, is fully consistent with the other cases in the Teague line of authority. The majority states that in Bohlen, "the Court focused on the more general rule sought— that the Double Jeopardy Clause applies to a noncapital sentencing proceeding — as opposed to the specific holding sought by the petitioner, that his sentence violated the Double Jeopardy Clause." Ante at 883. This distinction is a false one. Granting Bohlen's proposed relief — declaring his sentence unconstitutional — would have required a holding that the Double Jeopardy Clause applied with the same force in noncapital, as in capital, sentencing. The Court held that reasonable jurists at the time Bohlen's conviction became final would not have believed such a holding was dictated by precedent. Hence, they would not have been compelled to rule in Boh-len's favor and declare his sentence unconstitutional. See Bohlen, -U.S. at-, 114 S.Ct. at 955-56.

. The second of these questions allowed for consideration of mitigating evidence. That question asked “whether there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society.” Tex.Code Crim.Proc.Ann. art. 37.-071(b) (Vernon 1981).

. Graham, and its distinction of Penry, follow naturally from Teague's instruction that new obligations are not to be imposed on the states via federal habeas review. When Peniy’s conviction became final, the law was clear that "the State must allow the jury to give effect to mitigating evidence in making the sentencing decision.” Parks, 494 U.S. at 491, 110 S.Ct. at 1262 (citing Lockett and Eddings). As noted, the Penry majority concluded that the jury could not give any mitigating effect to his evidence within the strictures of the “special issues.” Hence, vacating Penry’s death sentence, and requiring an additional instruction that the jury could consider his mitigating evidence as such, did not "impose a new obligation,” Teague, 489 U.S. at 301, 109 S.Ct. at 1070, on the State of Texas. Such an obligation — i.e., that although Texas could channel the effect of a defendant’s mitigating evidence, it could not foreclose consideration of that effect altogether — had already been imposed by prior law. Vacating Graham’s death sentence, by contrast, would have required a holding that Texas could not channel the effect of a defendant’s mitigating evidence at all. Because Jurek had approved Texas’ sentencing procedure, which restricted a defendant's use of mitigating evidence to the context of the special issue of future dangerousness, such a holding would unquestionably have announced a new rule.

. As did Graham, Stringer sought the benefit of decisions that postdated the finality of his conviction. The Supreme Court stated in Stringer that the threshold question when a habeas petitioner relies on a subsequent decision is “whether the decision relied on announced a new rule.” Stringer,-U.S. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 1135. If it is determined that the subsequent decision did not announce a new rule, a second inquiry must be undertaken. That inquiry is “whether granting the relief sought would create a new rule because the prior decision is applied in a new setting, thereby extending the precedent.” Id. Where instead, as here, the petitioner seeks the benefit of a decision that predated the finality of his conviction, the question is simply whether the relief he seeks is dictated by that precedent. In substance, the questions in the two contexts are identical.

. The instruction with respect to the definition of the term "cruel” was apparently more limiting. However, Oklahoma’s “heinousness” aggravating factor was phrased in the disjunctive, and therefore Cartwright’s jury could have imposed the death penalty based on one of the unquestionably vague terms. Thus, the “cruelty” instruction cannot serve to distinguish Cartwright's instructions from Godfrey's. Shell, 498 U.S. at 3-4, 111 S.Ct. at 314 (Marshall, J., concurring).

. See Brief of Appellant at 53 n. 19 (citing George v. Commonwealth, 242 Va. 264, 411 S.E.2d 12 (1991), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 1591, 118 L.Ed.2d 308 (1992) (defendant sodomized child victim and used stun gun on victim's penis); Strickler v. Commonwealth, 241 Va. 482, 404 S.E.2d 227, cert. denied, -U.S. ---, 112 S.Ct. 386, 116 L.Ed.2d 337 (1991) (defendant abducted victim, stripped her, beat her, and sexually assaulted her before killing her by crushing her head in four places with large rock); Stockton v. Commonwealth, 241 Va. 192, 402 S.E.2d 196, cert. denied, — U.S. —, 112 S.Ct. 280, 116 L.Ed.2d 231 (1991) (defendant shot victim and cut off his hands at the wrists while victim still alive); Bennett v. Commonwealth, 236 Va. 448, 374 S.E.2d 303 (1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1028, 109 S.Ct. 1765, 104 L.Ed.2d 200 (1989) (over extended period, bound victim suffered repeated blows to head and face, was stabbed four times and strangled); Correll v. Commonwealth, 232 Va. 454, 352 S.E.2d 352, cert. denied, 482 U.S. 931, 107 S.Ct. 3219, 96 L.Ed.2d 705 (1987) (defendant choked victim, robbed him, kicked him in face several times and used unconscious body as target for knife-throwing); Wise v. Commonwealth, 230 Va. 322, 337 S.E.2d 715 (1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1112, 106 S.Ct. 1524, 89 L.Ed.2d 921 (1986) (defendant struck victim's head repeatedly, broke three of victim's fingers, tore flesh from nose and forehead, shot victim in eyeball, threw victim in outdoor toilet and fired shotgun in victim's chest); Poyner v. Commonwealth, 229 Va. 401, 329 S.E.2d 815, cert. denied, 474 U.S. 865, 106, S.Ct. 189, 88 L.Ed.2d 158 (1985) (defendant tortured one victim before shooting her in back of head after he ordered her to walk away from him and defendant stripped second victim, raped her, shot her in head and flung her nude body into parking lot); Jones v. Commonwealth, 228 Va. 427, 323 S.E.2d 554 (1984), cert. denied, 472 U.S. 1012, 105 S.Ct. 2713, 86 L.Ed.2d 728 (1985) (defendant tied one victim's hands behind her, stuffed sock down her throat, taped mouth and neck, forced her in closet, shot her point blank;, doused her with accelerant and set her on fire, and left her still alive and breathing to die of smoke inhalation; attempted to incinerate second victim); Clozza v. Commonwealth, 228 Va. 124, 321 S.E.2d 273 (1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1230, 105 S.Ct. 1233, 84 L.Ed.2d 370 (1985) (defendant beat 13-year-old victim for over two hours, raped her and penetrated her vagina with twigs and large cylindrical object before internal bleeding suffocated her); Fitzgerald v. Commonwealth, 223 Va. 615, 292 S.E.2d 798 (1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1228, 103 S.Ct. 1235, 75 L.Ed.2d 469 (1983) (defendant inflicted 184 stab wounds with machete and knife, all sustained before victim's death); LeVasseur v. Commonwealth, 225 Va. 564, 304 S.E.2d 644 (1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1063, 104 S.Ct. 744, 79 L.Ed.2d 202 (1984) (victim sustained at least 43 wounds and lacerations; back of head crushed by blows with blunt instrument; ice pick and two-pronged carving fork found protruding from victim’s back; victim’s ankles bound together; liquid bleach poured over body; and attempt to incinerate body); Whitley v. Commonwealth, 223 Va. 66, 286 S.E.2d 162, cert. denied, 459 U.S. 882, 103 S.Ct. 181, 74 L.Ed.2d 148 (1982) (defendant confessed to choking 63-year-old widow with bare hands, strangling her with rope, and cutting her throat; victim was found with one umbrella inserted into her vagina and another in her rectum); Briley v. Commonwealth, 221 Va. 563, 273 S.E.2d 57 (1980) (defendant raped woman in front of husband and child, after which woman was shot in head four times while family watched, husband was then shot in front of child, and finally child was shot); Mason v. Commonwealth, 219 Va. 1091, 254 S.E.2d 116, cert. denied, 444 U.S. 919, 100 S.Ct. 239, 62 L.Ed.2d 176 (1979) (defendant raped 71-year-old woman, struck her several times in head and body with an ax, shoved ax *919handle into her rectum, drove a nail into her wrist, and set her on fire while still alive)).

. In Godfrey, the petitioner had purposefully shot both his wife and mother-in-law in the head with a shotgun, killing each instantly in the presence of his 11-year old daughter. Moments later, he confessed to the police that he had "done a hideous crime, ... but [had] been thinking about it for eight years” and would "do it again." Godfrey, 446 U'.S. at 425-26, 100 S.Ct. at 1763. The plurality vacated petitioner’s death sentence on the ground, inter alia, that the death penalty had been imposed capriciously because the victims had been killed "instantaneously,” and thus, according to the plurality, the decision to impose the death penalty had not been based on reason.

. Compare Smith v. Dixon, 766 F.Supp. 1370, 1383-86 (E.D.N.C.1991), aff'd, 996 F.2d 667 (4th Cir.1993), rev'd on other grounds, 14 F.3d 956 (4th Cir.1994) (en banc), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 115 S.Ct. 129, - L.Ed.2d - (1994) (Godfrey dictates relief sought by petitioner when the jury was instructed that ”[h]einous means extremely wicked or shockingly evil,” and when it was unclear from the record whether the North Carolina Supreme Court had applied an adequate limiting construction).

. It is difficult to understand the majority’s statement that in Jones v. Murray, 976 F.2d 169 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, -U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 27, 120 L.Ed.2d 951 (1992), "we indicated that challenges to Virginia's limiting instructions and appellate review were not barred by Teague.” Ante at 882. In Jones, our discussion of Teague was limited to the following:
Neither party argues that the new cases on which Jones relies [Stringer and Sochor v. Florida, -U.S.-, 112 S.Ct. 2114, 119 L.Ed.2d 326 (1992) ] create a new rule that cannot be applied retroactively in a collateral review of Jones's death sentence. Cf. Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989) (prohibiting retroactive application on collateral review of cases that announce new rules). Both sides agree that these cases are firmly grounded in Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 100 S.Ct. 1759, 64 L.Ed.2d 398 (1980) (plurality opinion). See Stringer v. Black, - U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 1130, 117 L.Ed.2d 367 (1992) (holding that application of Godfrey rules to weighing statute was not a new rule). Therefore, there is no procedural bar under Teague to the application of the new cases on which Jones relies.
Id. at 173. What this passage “indicates” is simply that the Jones panel accepted the parties’ agreement that the two cases on which the petitioner relied, Stringer and Sochor, did not themselves create new rules of constitutional law. It cannot be taken as a statement that every habeas petitioner’s challenge to Virginia's limiting instructions and appellate review, no matter how strained, is not Teague-barred because it happens to be "predicated” on Godfrey.

.Turner’s claim that his sentence was unconstitutional because “the crime was less. culpable than the conduct in other death penalty cases or *920in many cases in which the defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment,” Appellant's Brief at 50, is even more clearly barred because it appears to demand some form of proportionality review in addition to application of the Smith limiting constructions. However, in 1984, the Supreme Court held that proportionality review was not constitutionally required. See Pulley v. Harris, 465 U.S. 37, 104 S.Ct. 871, 79 L.Ed.2d 29 (1984). As for Turner's allegation that his federal constitutional rights were violated because his crime does not "fit" within Virginia’s vileness factor, granting his relief would require a rule of constitutional law far less deferential to state courts than the "rational factfinder" standard the Supreme Court applied to such claims in Lewis v. Jeffers, 497 U.S. 764, 110 S.Ct. 3092, 111 L.Ed.2d 606 (1990). This assumes, of course, that die application of the "rational factfinder” standard in Jeffers itself was dictated by precedent.

. I also conclude that Turner's "vileness” claims do not fall within either of Teague's two exceptions. Granting his relief would not prohibit “a certain category of punishment for a class of defendants because of their status or offense." Penry, 492 U.S. at 330, 109 S.Ct. at 2953 (emphasis added). Nor would it lead this court to announce a " ‘watershed rule[ ] of criminal procedure' implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding.” Parks, 494 U.S. at 495, 110 S.Ct. at 1264 (quoting Teague, 489 U.S. at 311, 109 S.Ct. at 1075).

. I do not question the majority's conclusion that Turner's Strickland claims are not Teague-barred, although I do not concur in its reasoning on this score. Essentially for the reasons explained by the majority, I agree with the majority that Turner’s ineffective assistance of counsel claims are without merit.