JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court as to Part II (except as to the footnote), concluding that § 2254(d)(1) places a new constraint on the power of a federal habeas court to grant relief to a state prisoner with respect to claims adjudicated on the merits in state court: The habeas writ may issue only if the state-court adjudication (1) "was contrary to," or (2) "involved an unreasonable application of… " clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." Pp.402-413.
(a) Because Williams filed his petition in 1997, his case is not governed by the pre-1996 version of the federal habeas statute, but by the statute as amended by AEDPA. Accordingly, for Williams to obtain federal habeas relief, he must first demonstrate that his case satisfies the condition set by § 2254(d)(1). That provision modifies the previously settled rule of independent federal review of state prisoners' habeas petitions in order to curb delays, to prevent "retrials" on federal habeas, and to give effect to state convictions to the extent possible under law. In light of the cardinal principle of statutory construction that courts must give effect, if possible, to every clause and word of a statute, this Court must give independent meaning to both the "contrary to" and "unreasonable application" clauses of § 2254(d)(1). Given the commonly understood definitions of "contrary" as "diametrically different," "opposite in character or nature," or "mutually opposed," § 2254(d)(1)'s first clause must be interpreted to mean that a federal habeas court may grant relief if the state court (1) arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by this Court on a question of law or (2) decides a case differ ently than this Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts. Under the "unreasonable application" clause, a federal habeas court may grant relief if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from this Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case. Pp. 402-409.
(b) In defining what qualifies as an "unreasonable application of… clearly established Federal law," the Fourth Circuit erred in holding that a state-court decision involves such an application only if the state court has applied federal law in a manner that reasonable jurists would all agree is unreasonable. That standard would tend to mislead federal habeas courts by focusing on a subjective inquiry. Rather, the federal court should ask whether the state court's application of clearly established federal law was objectively unreasonable. Cf. Wright v. West, 505 U. S. 277, 304. Although difficult to define, "unreasonable" is a common legal term familiar to federal judges. For present purposes, the most important point is that an unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law. See, e. g., id., at 305. Because Congress specifically used the word "unreasonable," and not a term like "erroneous" or "incorrect," a federal habeas court may not grant relief simply because it concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application must also be unreasonable. Finally, the phrase "clearly established Federal law, as determined by [this] Court" refers to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of this Court's decisions as of the time of the relevant statecourt decision. In this respect, the quoted phrase bears only a slight connection to this Court's jurisprudence under Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288. Whatever would qualify as an "old rule" under Teague will constitute "clearly established Federal law, as determined by [this] Court," see, e. g., Stringer v. Black, 503 U. S. 222, 228, but with one caveat: Section 2254(d)(1) restricts the source of clearly established law to this Court's jurisprudence. Pp. 409-413.
STEVENS, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, III, and IV, in which O'CONNOR, KENNEDY, SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Parts II and V, in which SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. O'CONNOR, J., delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Part II (except as to the footnote), in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and KENNEDY and THOMAS, JJ., joined, and in which SCALIA, J., joined, except as to the footnote, and an opinion concurring in part and Syllabus
concurring in the judgment, in which KENNEDY, J., joined, post, p. 399. REHNQUIST, C. J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which SCALIA and THOMAS, JJ., joined, post, p. 416.
John J. Gibbons argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Brian A. Powers, by appointment of the Court, 526 U. S. 1110, and Ellen O. Boardman.
Robert Q. Harris, Assistant Attorney General of Virginia, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Mark L. Earley, Attorney General. *
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American Bar Association by Philip S. Anderson, Abe Krash, Kathleen A. Behan, and John A. Freedman; for the American Civil Liberties Union by Larry W Yackle and Steven R. Shapiro; for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers by John D. Cline and Lisa B. Kemler; for the Virginia College of Criminal Defense Attorneys et al. by Gerald T. Zerkin; for Professors Lance G. Banning et al. by Barry Levenstam and Jeffrey T. Shaw; and for Marvin E. Frankel et al. by Abner J. Mikva.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of California et al. by Bill Lockyer, Attorney General of California, David Druliner, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Senior Assistant Attorney General, and Donald E. De Nicola and Ward A. Campbell, Deputy Attorneys General, joined by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Bill Pryor of Alabama, Bruce M. Botelho of Alaska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Ken Salazar of Colorado, John M. Bailey of Connecticut, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Robert A. Butterworth of Florida, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, Alan G. Lance of Idaho, James E. Ryan of Illinois, Carla Stovall of Kansas, Richard P. Ieyoub of Louisiana, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Thomas F. Reilly of Massachusetts, Michael C. Moore of Mississippi, Jeremiah W (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Joseph P. Mazurek of Montana, Don Stenberg of Nebraska, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, John J. Farmer, Jr., of New Jersey, Patricia A. Madrid of New Mexico, Michael E. Easley of North Carolina, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Betty D. Montgomery of Ohio, W A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, D. Michael Fisher of Pennsylvania, Charles M. Condon of South Carolina, Mark Barnett of South Dakota, Paul G. Summers of Tennessee, John Cornyn of Texas, Jan Graham of Utah, Christine O. Gregoire of Washington, and Darrell McGraw, Jr., of West Virginia; and for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation by Kent S. Scheidegger. JUSTICE STEVENS announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, III, and IV, and an opinion with respect to Parts II and V. *
The questions presented are whether Terry Williams' constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel as defined in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), was violated, and whether the judgment of the Virginia Supreme Court refusing to set aside his death sentence "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1) (1994 ed., Supp. III). We answer both questions affirmatively.
I
On November 3, 1985, Harris Stone was found dead in his residence on Henry Street in Danville, Virginia. Finding no indication of a struggle, local officials determined that the cause of death was blood alcohol poisoning, and the case was considered closed. Six months after Stone's death, Terry Williams, who was then incarcerated in the "I" unit of the city jail for an unrelated offense, wrote a letter to the police stating that he had killed "'that man down on Henry Street'" and also stating that he "'did it'" to that "'lady down on West Green Street'" and was" 'very sorry.'" The letter was unsigned, but it closed with a reference to "I cell." App. 41. The police readily identified Williams as its author, and, on April 25, 1986, they obtained several statements from him. In one Williams admitted that, after Stone refused to lend him" 'a couple of dollars,'" he had killed Stone with a
*JUSTICE SOUTER, JUSTICE GINSBURG, and JUSTICE BREYER join this opinion in its entirety. JUSTICE O'CONNOR and JUSTICE KENNEDY join Parts I, III, and IV of this opinion. mattock and taken the money from his wallet.1 Id., at 4. In September 1986, Williams was convicted of robbery and capital murder.
At Williams' sentencing hearing, the prosecution proved that Williams had been convicted of armed robbery in 1976 and burglary and grand larceny in 1982. The prosecution also introduced the written confessions that Williams had made in April. The prosecution described two auto thefts and two separate violent assaults on elderly victims perpetrated after the Stone murder. On December 4, 1985, Williams had started a fire outside one victim's residence before attacking and robbing him. On March 5, 1986, Williams had brutally assaulted an elderly woman on West Green Streetan incident he had mentioned in his letter to the police. That confession was particularly damaging because other evidence established that the woman was in a "vegetative state" and not expected to recover. Id., at 60. Williams had also been convicted of arson for setting a fire in the jail while awaiting trial in this case. Two expert witnesses employed by the State testified that there was a "high probabil
1" 'I had gone to Dee Dee Stone's house on Henry Street, Dee Dee's father was there. No one else was there except him. He had been drinking a lot. He was on the bed. He asked me if I wanted a drink. I told him, 'No.' I asked him if I could borrow a couple of dollars and he told me, 'No.' We started arguing and things started going around in my head. I just wanted to get back at him. I don't know what. He just laid back like he had passed out. He was laying there talking and moaning to himself. I went into the kitchen. I saw the butcher knife. I didn't want to use it. I was looking for something to use. I went into the bathroom and I saw the mattock. I picked up the mattock and I came back into the room where he was at. He was laying on the bed. He was laying on his back. I took the mattock and I hit him on the chest with it. He raised up and was gasping for his breath. He fell over to his side and I hit him in the back with the mattock. He fell back on the bed. I went and put the mattock back in the bathroom. I came back into the room. I took his wallet from his pocket. He had three dollars in it. I got the three dollars from it. I left him there. He was still grasping for breath.''' App.4-5. ity" that Williams would pose a serious continuing threat to society. Id., at 89.
The evidence offered by Williams' trial counsel at the sentencing hearing consisted of the testimony of Williams' mother, two neighbors, and a taped excerpt from a statement by a psychiatrist. One of the neighbors had not been previously interviewed by defense counsel, but was noticed by counsel in the audience during the proceedings and asked to testify on the spot. The three witnesses briefly described Williams as a "nice boy" and not a violent person. Id., at 124. The recorded psychiatrist's testimony did little more than relate Williams' statement during an examination that in the course of one of his earlier robberies, he had removed the bullets from a gun so as not to injure anyone.
In his cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses, Williams' counsel repeatedly emphasized the fact that Williams had initiated the contact with the police that enabled them to solve the murder and to identify him as the perpetrator of the recent assaults, as well as the car thefts. In closing argument, Williams' counsel characterized Williams' confessional statements as "dumb," but asked the jury to give weight to the fact that he had "turned himself in, not on one crime but on four… that the [police otherwise] would not have solved." Id., at 140. The weight of defense counsel's closing, however, was devoted to explaining that it was difficult to find a reason why the jury should spare Williams' life.2 The jury found a probability of future dangerousness and unanimously fixed Williams' punishment at death. The trial judge concluded that such punishment was "proper" and "just" and imposed the death sentence. Id., at 154. The Virginia Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence. Williams v. Commonwealth, 234 Va. 168, 360 S. E. 2d 361 (1987), cert. denied, Williams v. Virginia, 484 U. S. 1020 (1988). It rejected Williams' argument that when the trial judge imposed sentence, he failed to give mitigating weight to the fact that Williams had turned himself in. 234 Va., at 181-182, 360 S. E. 2d, at 369-370.
State Habeas Corpus Proceedings
In 1988 Williams filed for state collateral relief in the Danville Circuit Court. The petition was subsequently amended, and the Circuit Court (the same judge who had presided over Williams' trial and sentencing) held an evidentiary hearing on Williams' claim that trial counsel had been ineffective.3 Based on the evidence adduced after two days of hearings, Judge Ingram found that Williams' conviction was valid, but that his trial attorneys had been ineffective during sentencing. Among the evidence reviewed that had not been presented at trial were documents prepared in connection with Williams' commitment when he was 11 years old that dramatically described mistreatment, abuse, and neglect during his early childhood, as well as testimony that he was "borderline mentally retarded," had suffered repeated head injuries, and might have mental impairments organic in origin. App. 528-529, 595. The habeas hearing also revealed that the same experts who had testified on the State's behalf at trial believed that Williams, if kept in a "structured environment," would not pose a future danger to society. Id., at 313-314.
Counsel's failure to discover and present this and other significant mitigating evidence was "below the range expected of reasonable, professional competent assistance of counsel." Id., at 424. Counsel's performance thus "did not measure up to the standard required under the holding of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), and [if it had,] there is a reasonable probability that the result of the sentencing phase would have been different." Id., at 429. Judge Ingram therefore recommended that Williams be granted a rehearing on the sentencing phase of his trial.
The Virginia Supreme Court did not accept that recommendation. Williams v. Warden, 254 Va. 16, 487 S. E. 2d 194 (1997). Although it assumed, without deciding, that trial counsel had been ineffective, id., at 23-26, 487 S. E. 2d, at 198, 200, it disagreed with the trial judge's conclusion that Williams had suffered sufficient prejudice to warrant relief. Treating the prejudice inquiry as a mixed question of law and fact, the Virginia Supreme Court accepted the factual determination that available evidence in mitigation had not been presented at the trial, but held that the trial judge had misapplied the law in two respects. First, relying on our decision in Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U. S. 364 (1993), the court held that it was wrong for the trial judge to rely "'on mere outcome determination'" when assessing prejudice, 254 Va., at 23, 487 S. E. 2d, at 198 (quoting Lockhart, 506 U. S., at 369). Second, it construed the trial judge's opinion as having "adopted a per se approach" that would establish prejudice whenever any mitigating evidence was omitted. 254 Va., at 26, 487 S. E. 2d, at 200.
The court then reviewed the prosecution evidence supporting the "future dangerousness" aggravating circumstance, reciting Williams' criminal history, including the sev eral most recent offenses to which he had confessed. In comparison, it found that the excluded mitigating evidencewhich it characterized as merely indicating "that numerous people, mostly relatives, thought that defendant was nonviolent and could cope very well in a structured environment," ibid.-"barely would have altered the profile of this defendant that was presented to the jury," ibid. On this basis, the court concluded that there was no reasonable possibility that the omitted evidence would have affected the jury's sentencing recommendation, and that Williams had failed to demonstrate that his sentencing proceeding was fundamentally unfair.
Federal Habeas Corpus Proceedings
Having exhausted his state remedies, Williams sought a federal writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2254 (1994 ed. and Supp. III). After reviewing the state habeas hearing transcript and the state courts' findings of fact and conclusions of law, the federal trial judge agreed with the Virginia trial judge: The death sentence was constitutionally infirm.
After noting that the Virginia Supreme Court had not addressed the question whether trial counsel's performance at the sentencing hearing fell below the range of competence demanded of lawyers in criminal cases, the judge began by addressing that issue in detail. He identified five categories of mitigating evidence that counsel had failed to introduce,4
4 "(i) Counsel did not introduce evidence of the Petitioner's background…. (ii) Counsel did not introduce evidence that Petitioner was abused by his father. (iii) Counsel did not introduce testimony from correctional officers who were willing to testify that defendant would not pose a danger while incarcerated. Nor did counsel offer prison commendations awarded to Williams for his help in breaking up a prison drug ring and for returning a guard's missing wallet. (iv) Several character witnesses were not called to testify…. [T]he testimony of Elliott, a respected CPA in the community, could have been quite important to the jury…. (v) Finally, counsel did not introduce evidence that Petitioner and he rejected the argument that counsel's failure to conduct an adequate investigation had been a strategic decision to rely almost entirely on the fact that Williams had voluntarily confessed.
According to Williams' trial counsel's testimony before the state habeas court, counsel did not fail to seek Williams' juvenile and social services records because he thought they would be counterproductive, but because counsel erroneously believed that" 'state law didn't permit it.'" App.470. Counsel also acknowledged in the course of the hearings that information about Williams' childhood would have been important in mitigation. And counsel's failure to contact a potentially persuasive character witness was likewise not a conscious strategic choice, but simply a failure to return that witness' phone call offering his service. Id., at 470-471. Finally, even if counsel neglected to conduct such an investigation at the time as part of a tactical decision, the District Judge found, tactics as a matter of reasonable performance could not justify the omissions.
Turning to the prejudice issue, the judge determined that there was "'a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.' Strickland, 466 U. S. at 694." Id., at 473. He found that the Virginia Supreme Court had erroneously assumed that Lockhart had modified the Strickland standard for determining prejudice, and that it had made an important error of fact in discussing its finding of no prejudice.5 Having introduced his analysis of Williams' claim
was borderline mentally retarded, though he was found competent to stand trial." App.465-469.
5 "Specifically, the Virginia Supreme Court found no prejudice, reasoning: 'The mitigation evidence that the prisoner says, in retrospect, his trial counsel should have discovered and offered barely would have altered the profile of this defendant that was presented to the jury. At most, this evidence would have shown that numerous people, mostly relatives, thought that defendant was nonviolent and could cope very well in a structured environment.' Williams, 487 S. E. 2d at 200. The Virginia Su Opinion of STEVENS, J.
with the standard of review applicable on habeas appeals provided by 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d) (1994 ed., Supp. III), the judge concluded that those errors established that the Virginia Supreme Court's decision "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law" within the meaning of § 2254(d)(1).
The Federal Court of Appeals reversed. 163 F.3d 860 (CA4 1998). It construed § 2254(d)(1) as prohibiting the grant of habeas corpus relief unless the state court" 'decided the question by interpreting or applying the relevant precedent in a manner that reasonable jurists would all agree is unreasonable.'" Id., at 865 (quoting Green v. French, 143 F.3d 865, 870 (CA4 1998)). Applying that standard, it could not say that the Virginia Supreme Court's decision on the prejudice issue was an unreasonable application of the tests developed in either Strickland or Lockhart. 6 It explained that the evidence that Williams presented a future danger to society was "simply overwhelming," 163 F. 3d, at 868, it endorsed the Virginia Supreme Court's interpretation of Lockhart, 163 F. 3d, at 869, and it characterized the state court's understanding of the facts in this case as "reasonable," id., at 870.
We granted certiorari, 526 U. S. 1050 (1999), and now reverse.
II
In 1867, Congress enacted a statute providing that federal courts "shall have power to grant writs of habeas corpus in
preme Court ignored or overlooked the evidence of Williams' difficult childhood and abuse and his limited mental capacity. It is also unreasonable to characterize the additional evidence as coming from 'mostly relatives.' As stated, supra, Bruce Elliott, a respected professional in the community, and several correctional officers offered to testify on Williams behalf." Id., at 476. all cases where any person may be restrained of his or her liberty in violation of the constitution, or of any treaty or law of the United States…. " Act of Feb. 5, 1867, ch. 28, § 1, 14 Stat. 385. Over the years, the federal habeas corpus statute has been repeatedly amended, but the scope of that jurisdictional grant remains the same.7 It is, of course, well settled that the fact that constitutional error occurred in the proceedings that led to a state-court conviction may not alone be sufficient reason for concluding that a prisoner is entitled to the remedy of habeas. See, e. g., Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465 (1976); Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619 (1993). On the other hand, errors that undermine confidence in the fundamental fairness of the state adjudication certainly justify the issuance of the federal writ. See, e. g., Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288, 311-314 (1989) (quoting Mackey v. United States, 401 U. S. 667, 692-694 (1971) (Harlan, J., concurring in judgments in part and dissenting in part), and quoting Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509, 544 (1982) (STEVENS, J., dissenting)). The deprivation of the right to the effective assistance of counsel recognized in Strickland is such an error. Strickland, 466 U. S., at 686, 697-698.
The warden here contends that federal habeas corpus relief is prohibited by the amendment to 28 U. S. C. § 2254 (1994 ed., Supp. III), enacted as a part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The relevant portion of that amendment provides: Opinion of STEVENS, J."(d) An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim"(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States…. "
In this case, the Court of Appeals applied the construction of the amendment that it had adopted in its earlier opinion in Green v. French, 143 F.3d 865 (CA4 1998). It read the amendment as prohibiting federal courts from issuing the writ unless:"(a) the state court decision is in 'square conflict' with Supreme Court precedent that is controlling as to law and fact or (b) if no such controlling decision exists, 'the state court's resolution of a question of pure law rests upon an objectively unreasonable derivation of legal principles from the relevant [S]upreme [C]ourt precedents, or if its decision rests upon an objectively unreasonable application of established principles to new facts,'" 163 F. 3d, at 865 (quoting Green, 143 F. 3d, at 870).
Accordingly, it held that a federal court may issue habeas relief only if" 'the state courts have decided the question by interpreting or applying the relevant precedent in a manner that reasonable jurists would all agree is unreasonable,'" 163 F. 3d, at 865.8 We are convinced that that interpretation of the amendment is incorrect. It would impose a test for determining when a legal rule is clearly established that simply cannot be squared with the real practice of decisional law. 9 It would apply a standard for determining the "reasonableness" of state-court decisions that is not contained in the statute itself, and that Congress surely did not intend. And it would wrongly require the federal courts, including this Court, to defer to state judges' interpretations of federal law.
As the Fourth Circuit would have it, a state-court judgment is "unreasonable" in the face of federal law only if all reasonable jurists would agree that the state court was unreasonable. Thus, in this case, for example, even if the Virginia Supreme Court misread our opinion in Lockhart, we could not grant relief unless we believed that none of the judges who agreed with the state court's interpretation of that case was a "reasonable jurist." But the statute says
clearly established federal law. Brief for Respondent 14-15. The first, "contrary to" exception, in his view, applies only to "starkly unreasonable" errors of law. The first category thus imposes "a standard of review far more limited than 'de novo,' 'independent' or 'plenary' review." Id., at 24. The state-court judgment must thus be so far afield "as to make the 'unlawfulness' of the state court decision 'apparent.''' Id., at 25. The second exception likewise replaces the "de novo" standard of reviewing mixed questions of law and fact with the standard of "objective reasonableness" as formulated by the Court of Appeals. Id., at 30-31. Opinion of STEVENS, J.
nothing about "reasonable judges," presumably because all, or virtually all, such judges occasionally commit error; they make decisions that in retrospect may be characterized as "unreasonable." Indeed, it is most unlikely that Congress would deliberately impose such a requirement of unanimity on federal judges. As Congress is acutely aware, reasonable lawyers and lawgivers regularly disagree with one another. Congress surely did not intend that the views of one such judge who might think that relief is not warranted in a particular case should always have greater weight than the contrary, considered judgment of several other reasonable judges.
The inquiry mandated by the amendment relates to the way in which a federal habeas court exercises its duty to decide constitutional questions; the amendment does not alter the underlying grant of jurisdiction in § 2254(a), see n. 7, supra. lO When federal judges exercise their federalquestion jurisdiction under the "judicial Power" of Article III of the Constitution, it is "emphatically the province and duty" of those judges to "say what the law is." Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803). At the core of this power is the federal courts' independent responsibility-independent from its coequal branches in the Federal Government, and independent from the separate authority of the several States-to interpret federal law. A construction of AEDPA that would require the federal courts to cede this authority to the courts of the States would be inconsistent with the practice that federal judges have traditionally followed in discharging their duties under Article III of the Constitution. If Congress had intended to require such an important change in the exercise of our jurisdiction, we believe it would have spoken with much greater clarity than is found in the text of AEDPA.
This basic premise informs our interpretation of both parts of § 2254(d)(1): first, the requirement that the determinations of state courts be tested only against "clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," and second, the prohibition on the issuance of the writ unless the state court's decision is "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of," that clearly established law. We address each part in turn.
The "clearly established law" requirement
In Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989), we held that the petitioner was not entitled to federal habeas relief because he was relying on a rule of federal law that had not been announced until after his state conviction became final. The antiretroactivity rule recognized in Teague, which prohibits reliance on "new rules," is the functional equivalent of a statutory provision commanding exclusive reliance on "clearly established law." Because there is no reason to believe that Congress intended to require federal courts to ask both whether a rule sought on habeas is "new" under Teague which remains the law-and also whether it is "clearly established" under AEDPA, it seems safe to assume that Congress Opinion of STEVENS, J.
had congruent concepts in mindY It is perfectly clear that AEDPA codifies Teague to the extent that Teague requires federal habeas courts to deny relief that is contingent u