506 U.S. 364 (1993)
In August 1985, an Arkansas jury convicted Bobby Ray Fretwell of capital felony murder.1 During the penalty phase, the State argued that the evidence established two aggravating factors: the murder was committed for pecuniary gain and the murder was committed to facilitate Fretwell's escape.2 Finding only the pecuniary gain factor and no mitigating factors, the jury sentenced Fretwell to death.3
On direct appeal, Fretwell argued that his sentence should be reversed under Collins v. Lockhart, a 1985 Eighth Circuit decision holding that a death sentence is unconstitutional if based on an aggravating factor duplicating an element of the underlying felony.4 The Arkansas Supreme Court declined to consider the Collins argument because trial counsel had not objected to the pecuniary gain aggravator during sentencing and affirmed the conviction and death sentence in Fretwell v. State, 289 Ark. 91, 708 S. W. 2d 630 (1986).5
Fretwell next filed a state habeas corpus petition claiming ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to raise the Collins objection.6 The Arkansas Supreme Court rejected the claim in Fretwell v. State, 292 Ark. 96, 728 S. W. 2d 180 (1987) because Arkansas courts had not addressed the Collins question at the time of trial.7
Fretwell then petitioned for federal habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.8 The district court held that counsel had a duty to be aware of all law relevant to death penalty cases, that the failure to make the Collins objection amounted to prejudice under Strickland, and that habeas relief should be granted with the death sentence conditionally vacated, as reflected in 739 F. Supp. 1334 (ED Ark. 1990).9
The Eighth Circuit affirmed by a divided vote in 946 F. 2d 571 (CA8 1991), even though it had overruled Collins two years earlier in Perry v. Lockhart after the Supreme Court's decision in Lowenfield v. Phelps.10 The court reasoned that the trial court would have been bound to sustain the objection under then-existing precedent and remanded for a life sentence without parole.11 The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1992.12
Whether counsel's failure to make an objection in a state criminal sentencing proceeding—an objection that would have been supported by a decision which subsequently was overruled—constitutes "prejudice" within the meaning of Strickland v. Washington?13
The Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel requires a showing of both deficient performance and prejudice.14 Prejudice exists only when counsel's errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial whose result is reliable.15 An analysis focusing solely on outcome determination, without attention to whether the result of the proceeding was fundamentally unfair or unreliable, is defective.16 To set aside a conviction or sentence solely because the outcome would have been different but for counsel's error may grant the defendant a windfall to which the law does not entitle him.17
No. The rule requires that prejudice turn on whether the proceeding reached a result that was fundamentally unfair or unreliable, not merely on whether the outcome would have differed.18 Applying this standard to the established facts, Fretwell's counsel failed to object during the penalty phase to the pecuniary gain aggravating factor on the basis of Collins v. Lockhart.19 Although that objection would have been sustained under then-existing Eighth Circuit precedent, the Eighth Circuit later overruled Collins in Perry v. Lockhart.20 The failure therefore did not deprive Fretwell of any substantive or procedural right to which the law entitled him.21
The sentencing result remained neither unreliable nor fundamentally unfair because the objection rested on a legal proposition that did not survive.22 Counsel's omission thus produced no cognizable prejudice under Strickland.
Counsel's failure to make the objection does not constitute prejudice within the meaning of Strickland v. Washington.23
Related opinions on this issue
Justice O'Connor joined the majority but wrote separately to emphasize that the decision addresses an unusual circumstance in which a defendant seeks to demonstrate prejudice based on considerations that, as a matter of law, ought not inform the inquiry.24 She explained that the omitted objection might have been sustained at trial but was meritless under current governing law by the time the Eighth Circuit reviewed the claim.25 The claim rested on the suggestion that Fretwell might have been denied the right to have the state court make an error in his favor.26 This was rather than on the denial of an advantage the law might permit. Therefore, the impact of advocating a decidedly incorrect point of law is not a proper consideration when assessing the likelihood of a result more favorable to the defendant.27
She therefore agreed that the Court of Appeals should have concluded that Fretwell suffered no legally cognizable prejudice.28
Justice Thomas joined the Court's opinion in full but wrote separately to highlight a fundamental misunderstanding of the Supremacy Clause by the Court of Appeals.29 He noted that the Eighth Circuit had appeared to believe the Arkansas trial court would have been compelled by the Supremacy Clause to follow Collins.30 In his view, this was mistaken because neither federal supremacy nor any other principle of federal law requires that a state court's interpretation of federal law give way to a lower federal court's interpretation.31
An Arkansas trial court is bound by the Supreme Court's and the Arkansas Supreme Court's interpretations of federal law, but if it follows Eighth Circuit precedent it does so only because it chooses to, not because it must.32 Justice Thomas made clear that the Court of Appeals misinterpreted the Supremacy Clause as well as the Sixth Amendment.33
Joined by Justice Blackmun
Justice Stevens dissented, joined by Justice Blackmun, and argued that the majority reached the astonishing conclusion that deficient performance by counsel does not prejudice a defendant even when it results in the erroneous imposition of a death sentence.34 He maintained that the Court improperly introduced an element of hindsight that has no place in Sixth Amendment jurisprudence.35 The Court of Appeals correctly determined that fundamental unfairness exists when a prisoner receives a death sentence rather than life imprisonment solely because of his attorney's error.36
In his view, the proven connection between counsel's deficiency and the outcome of the sentencing proceeding, together with the presumptive effect on the adversarial process itself, entitled Fretwell to relief under the Strickland standard that prevailed until the majority's decision.37 He concluded that the only windfall at issue was the one conferred upon the State by the Court's ruling.38