Chaidez v. United States

declared a new rule and should not apply in a challenge to a final conviction.

Held: Padilla does not apply retroactively to cases already final on direct review. Pp. ___ - ___, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 155-162.

(a) Under Teague, a person whose conviction is already final may not benefit from a new rule of criminal procedure on collateral review. A “case announces a new rule if the result was not dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant's conviction became final.” 489 U.S., at 301, 109 S. Ct. 1060, 103 L. Ed. 2d 334. And a holding is not so dictated unless it would have been “apparent to all reasonable jurists.” Lambrix v. Singletary, 520 U.S. 518, 527-528, 117 S. Ct. 1517, 137 L. Ed. 2d 771. At the same time, a case does not “announce a new rule [when] it [is] merely an application of the principle that governed” a prior decision to a different set of facts. Teague, 489 U.S., at 307, 109 S. Ct. 1060, 103 L. Ed. 2d 334. Thus, garden-variety applications of the test in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674, for assessing ineffective assistance claims do not produce new rules, id., at 687-688, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674.

But Padilla did more than just apply Strickland's general standard to yet another factual situation. Before deciding if failing to inform a client about the risk of deportation “fell below [ Strickland's] objective standard of reasonableness,” 466 U.S., at 688, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674, Padilla first considered the threshold question whether advice about deportation was “categorically removed” from the scope of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel because it involved only a “collateral consequence” of a conviction, rather than a component of a criminal sentence, 559 U.S., at 366, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1482, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284. That is, prior to asking how the Strickland test applied, Padilla asked whether that test applied at all.

That preliminary question came to the Court unsettled. Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 106 S. Ct. 366, 88 L. Ed. 2d 203, had explicitly left open whether the Sixth Amendment right extends to collateral consequences. That left the issue to the state and lower federal courts, and they almost unanimously concluded that the Sixth Amendment does not require attorneys to inform their clients of a conviction's collateral consequences, including deportation. Padilla's contrary ruling thus answered an open question about the Sixth Amendments reach, in a way that altered the law of most jurisdictions. In so doing, Padilla broke new ground and imposed a new obligation. Pp. ___ - ___, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 155-160.

(b) Chaidez argues that Padilla did no more than apply Strickland to a new set of facts. But she ignores that Padilla had to develop new law to determine that Strickland applied at all. The few lower court decisions she cites held only that a lawyer may not affirmatively misrepresent his expertise or otherwise actively consequences, St. Cyr did not determine that the Sixth Amendment requires a lawyer to provide such information. It took Padilla to decide that question. Pp. ___ - ___, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 160-162.

655 F.3d 684, affirmed.

Kagan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Scalia, Kennedy, Breyer, and Alito, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 358 Sotomayor, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Ginsburg, J., joined, post, p.359.

Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the Court.

In Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284 (2010), this Court held that the Sixth Amendment requires an attorney for a criminal defendant to provide advice about the risk of deportation arising from a guilty plea. We consider here whether that ruling applies retroactively, so that a person whose conviction became final before we decided Padilla can benefit from it. We conclude that, under the principles set out in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S. Ct. 1060, 103 L. Ed. 2d 334 (1989), Padilladoes not have retroactive effect.

I

Petitioner Roselva Chaidez hails from Mexico, but became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 1977. About 20 years later, she helped to defraud an automobile insurance company out of $26,000. After federal agents uncovered the scheme, Chaidez pleaded guilty to two counts of mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §1341. The District Court sentenced her to four years of probation and ordered her to pay restitution. Chaidez's conviction became final in 2004.

Under federal immigration law, the offenses to which Chaidez pleaded guilty are “aggravated felonies,” subjecting her to mandatory removal from this country. See 8 U.S.C. §§1101(a)(43)(M)(i), 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii). But according to Chaidez, her attorney never advised her of that fact, and at the time of her plea she remained ignorant of it.

Immigration officials initiated removal proceedings against Chaidez in 2009, after an application she made for citizenship alerted them to her prior conviction. To avoid removal, Chaidez sought to overturn that conviction by filing a petition for a writ of coram nobis in Federal District Court. She argued that her former attorney's failure to advise her of the immigration consequences of pleading guilty constituted ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment.

A petition for a writ of coram nobis provides a way to collaterally attack a criminal conviction for a person, like Chaidez, who is no longer “in custody” and therefore cannot seek habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. §2255 or collateral habeas relief under §2241. See United States v. Morgan, 346 U.S. 502, 507, 510-511, 74 S. Ct. 247, 98 L. Ed. 248 (1954). Chaidez and the Government agree that nothing in this case turns on the difference between a coram nobis petition and a habeas petition, and we assume without deciding that they are correct.

While Chaidez's petition was pending, this Court decided Padilla. Our ruling vindicated Chaidez's view of the Sixth Amendment: We held that challenges to already-final convictions.

The District Court determined that Padilla “did not announce a new rule for Teague purposes,” and therefore should apply to Chaidez's case. 730 F. Supp. 2d 896, 904 (ND Ill. 2010). It then found that Chaidez's counsel had performed deficiently under Padilla and that Chaidez suffered prejudice as a result. Accordingly, the court vacated Chaidez's conviction. See No. 03 CR 636-6, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107877, 2010 WL 3979664 (ND Ill., Oct. 6, 2010).

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that Padilla had declared a new rule and so should not apply in a challenge to a final conviction. “Before Padilla,” the Seventh Circuit reasoned, “the [Supreme] Court had never held that the Sixth Amendment requires a criminal defense attorney to provide advice about matters not directly related to [a] client's criminal prosecution,” including the risks of deportation. 655 F.3d 684, 693 (2011). And state and lower federal courts had uniformly concluded that an attorney need not give “advice concerning [such a] collateral (as opposed to direct) consequenc[e] of a guilty plea.” Id., at 690. According to the Seventh Circuit, Padilla's holding was new because it ran counter to that widely accepted “distinction between direct and collateral consequences.” 655 F.3d, at 691. Judge Williams dissented. Agreeing with the Third Circuit's view, she argued that Padilla “broke no new ground” because it merely applied established law about a lawyer's “duty to consult” with a client. 655 F.3d, at 695 (quoting United States v. Orocio, 645 F.3d 630, 638-639 (CA3 2011). (internal quotation marks omitted).

We granted certiorari, 566 U.S. 974, 132 S. Ct. 2101, 182 L. Ed. 2d 867 (2012), to resolve a split among federal and state courts on whether Padilla applies retroactively. Holding that it does not, we affirm the Seventh Circuit.

Compare 655 F.3d 684 (CA7 2011) (case below) (not retroactive); United States v. Amer, 681 F.3d 211 (CA5 2012) (same); United States v. Chang Hong, 671 F.3d 1147 (CA10 2011) (same); State v. Gaitan, 209 N.J. 339, 37 A.3d 1089 (2012) (same), with United States v. Orocio, 645 F.3d 630 (CA3 2011) (retroactive); Commonwealth v. Clarke, 460 Mass. 30, 949 N.E.2d 892 (2011) (same).

II

Teague makes the retroactivity of our criminal procedure decisions turn on whether they are novel. When we announce a “new rule,” a person whose conviction is already final may not benefit from the decision in a habeas or similar proceeding. Only when we apply a settled rule may a person avail herself of the decision on collateral review. Here, Chaidez filed her coram nobis petition five years after her guilty plea became final. Her challenge therefore fails if Padilla declared a new rule.

Teague stated two exceptions: “[W]atershed rules of criminal procedure” and rules placing “conduct beyond the power of the [government] to proscribe” apply on collateral review, even if novel. 489 U.S., at 311, 109 S. Ct. 1060, 103 L. Ed. 2d 334 (internal quotation marks omitted). Chaidez does not argue that either of those exceptions is relevant here.

“[A] case announces a new rule” Teague explained, “when it breaks new ground or imposes a new obligation” on the government. 489 U.S., at 301, 109 S. Ct. 1060, 103 L. Ed. 2d 334. “To put it differently,” we continued, “a case announces a new rule if the result was not dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant's conviction became final.” Ibid. And a holding is not so dictated, we later stated, unless it would have been “apparent to all reasonable jurists.” Lambrix v. Singletary, 520 U.S. 518, 527-528, 117 S. Ct. 1517, 137 L. Ed. 2d 771 (1997).

But that account has a flipside. Teague also made clear that a case merely an application of the principle that governed' ” a prior decision to a different set of facts. 489 U.S., at 307, 109 S. Ct. 1060, 103 L. Ed. 2d 334 (quoting Yates v. Aiken, 484 U.S. 211, 217, 108 S. Ct. 534, 98 L. Ed. 2d 546 (1988)). As Justice Kennedy has explained, “[w]here the beginning point” of our analysis is a rule of “general application, a rule designed for the specific purpose of evaluating a myriad of factual contexts, it will be the infrequent case that yields a result so novel that it forges a new rule, one not dictated by precedent.” Wright v. West, 505 U.S. 277, 309, 112 S. Ct. 2482, 120 L. Ed. 2d 225 (1992) (concurring in judgment); see also Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 391, 120 S. Ct. 1495, 146 L. Ed. 2d 389 (2000). Otherwise said, when all we do is apply a general standard to the kind of factual circumstances it was meant to address, we will rarely state a new rule for Teague purposes.

Because that is so, garden-variety applications of the test in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1984), for assessing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel do not produce new rules. In Strickland, we held that legal representation violates the Sixth Amendment if it falls “below an objective standard of reasonableness,” as indicated by “prevailing professional situation--that is, had Padilla merely made clear that a lawyer who neglects to inform a client about the risk of deportation is professionally incompetent.

We did not consider Teague in Williams, Rompilla, and Wiggins, but we granted habeas relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §2254(d)(1) because state courts had unreasonably applied “clearly established” law. And, as we have explained, “clearly established” law is not “new” within the meaning of Teague. See Williams, 529 U.S., at 412, 120 S. Ct. 1495, 146 L. Ed. 2d 389.

But Padilla did something more. Before deciding if failing to provide considered a threshold question: Was advice about deportation “categorically removed” from the scope of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel because it involved only a “collateral consequence” of a conviction, rather than a component of the criminal sentence? 559 U.S., at 365-366, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1482, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284, 294. In other words, prior to asking how the Strickland test applied (“Did this attorney act unreasonably?”), Padilla asked whether the Strickland test applied (“Should we even evaluate if this attorney acted unreasonably?”). And as we will describe, that preliminary question about Strickland's ambit came to the Padilla Court unsettled--so that the Court's answer (“Yes, Strickland governs here”) required a new rule.

We have never attempted to delineate the world of “collateral consequences,” see Padilla, 559 U.S., at 364, n. 8, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1480-1481, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284, 293), nor do we do so here. But other effects of a conviction commonly viewed as collateral include civil commitment, civil forfeiture, sex offender registration, disqualification from public benefits, and disfranchisement. See id., at 376, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1487-1488, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284, 300 (Alito, J., concurring in judgment) (listing other examples).

The relevant background begins with our decision in Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 106 S. Ct. 366, 88 L. Ed. 2d 203 (1985), which explicitly left open whether advice concerning a collateral consequence must satisfy Sixth Amendment requirements. Hill pleaded guilty to first-degree murder after his attorney misinformed him about his parole eligibility. In addressing his claim of ineffective assistance, we first held that the Strickland standard extends generally to the plea process. See Hill, 474 U.S., at 57, 106 S. Ct. 366, 88 L. Ed. 2d 203. We then determined, however, that Hill had failed to allege prejudice from the lawyer's error and so could not prevail under that standard. See id., at 60, 106 S. Ct. 366, 88 L. Ed. 2d 203. That conclusion Id., at 60, 106 S. Ct. 366, 88 L. Ed. 2d 203.

In saying that much, we declined to rule not only on whether advice about a conviction's collateral consequences falls outside the Sixth Amendments scope, but also on whether parole eligibility should be considered such a consequence, as the Court of Appeals held.

Effective Assistance of Counsel and the Consequences of Guilty Pleas, 87 Cornell L. Rev. 697, 706 (2002).

See Broomes v. Ashcroft, 358 F.3d 1251, 1256 (CA10 2004); United States v. Fry, 322 F.3d 1198, 1200-1201 (CA9 2003); United States v. Gonzalez, 202 F.3d 20, 25 (CA1 2000); Russo v. United States, 1999 U.S. App. LEXIS 5024, 1999 WL 164951, *2 (CA2, Mar. 22, 1999); Ogunbase v. United States, 1991 U.S. App. LEXIS 1852, 1991 WL 11619, *1 (CA6, Feb. 5, 1991); United States v. Del Rosario, 902 F.2d 55, 58-59, 284 U.S. App. D.C. 90 (CADC 1990); United States v. George, 869 F.2d 333, 337 (CA7 1989); United States v. Yearwood, 863 F.2d 6, 7-8 (CA4 1988); United States v. Campbell, 778 F.2d 764, 768-769 (CA11 1985).

Rumpel v. State, 847 So. 2d 399, 402-405 (Ala. Crim. App. 2002); Tafoya v. State, 500 P.2d 247, 252 (Alaska 1972); State v. Rosas, 183 Ariz. 421, 423, 904 P.2d 1245, 1247 (App. 1995); Niver v. Commissioner of Correction, 101 Conn. App. 1, 3-5, 919 A.2d 1073, 1075-1076 (2007) ( per curiam); State v. Christie, 655 A.2d 836, 841 (Del. Super. 1994); Matos v. United States, 631 A.2d 28, 31-32 (D. C. 1993); Major v. State, 814 So. 2d 424, 431 (Fla. 2002); People v. Huante, 143 Ill. 2d 61, 68-71, 571 N.E.2d 736, 740-741, 156 Ill. Dec. 756 (1991); State v. Ramirez, 636 N.W.2d 740, 743-746 (Iowa 2001); State v. Muriithi, 273 Kan. 952, 961, 46 P.3d 1145, 1152 (2002); Commonwealth v. Fuartado, 170 S.W.3d 384, 385-386 (Ky. 2005); State v. Montalban, 2000-2739, p. 4 (La. 2/26/02), 810 So. 2d 1106, 1110; Commonwealth v. Fraire, 55 Mass. App. 916, 917, 774 N.E.2d 677, 678-679 (2002); People v. Davidovich, 463 Mich. 446, 452, 618 N.W.2d 579, 582 (2000) ( per curiam); State ex rel. Nixon v. Clark, 926 S.W.2d 22, 25 (Mo. App. 1996); State v. Zarate, 264 Neb. 690, 693-696, 651 N.W.2d 215, 221-223 (2002); Barajas v. State, 115 Nev. 440, 441-442, 991 P.2d 474, 475-476 (1999) ( per curiam); State v. Chung, 210 N. J. Super. 427, 434, 510 A.2d 72, 76 (App. Div. 1986); People v. Ford, 86 N. Y. 2d 397, 403-404, 657 N.E.2d 265, 268-269, 633 N.Y.S.2d 270 (1995); State v. Dalman, 520 N.W.2d 860, 863-864 (N. D. 1994); Commonwealth v. Frometa, 520 Pa. 552, 555-557, 555 A.2d 92, 93-94 (1989); State v. Alejo, 655 A.2d 692, 692-693 (R. I. 1995); Nikolaev v. Weber, 2005 S. D. 100, ¶¶11-12, 705 N.W.2d 72, 75-77 ( per curiam); Bautista v. State, 160 S.W.3d 917, 922 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2004); Perez v. State, 31 S.W.3d 365, 367-368 (Tex. App. 2000); State v. Rojas-Martinez, 2005 UT 86, ¶¶15-20, 125 P.3d 930, 934-935; State v. Martinez-Lazo, 100 Wash. App. 869, 876-878, 999 P.2d 1275, 1279-1280 (2000); State v. Santos, 136 Wis. 2d 528, 531, 401 N.W.2d 856, 858 (App. 1987).

People v. Pozo, 746 P.2d 523, 527-529 (Colo. 1987); State v. Paredez, 2004-NMSC-036, ¶¶17-19, 136 N.M. 533, 539, 101 P.3d 799, 805.

The dissent is therefore wrong to claim that we emphasize “the absence of lower court authority” holding that an attorney's failure to advise about deportation violated the Sixth Amendment. Post, at 368, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 169 (opinion of Sotomayor, J.). We instead point to the presence of lower court authority--in case after case and jurisdiction after jurisdiction--holding that such a failure, because relating to a collateral matter, could not do so.

and collateral consequences: Notwithstanding the then-dominant view, “ Strickland applies to Padilla's claim.” Id., at 366, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1482, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284.

If that does not count as “break[ing] new ground” or “impos[ing] a new obligation,” we are hard pressed to know what would. Teague, 489 U.S., at 301, 109 S. Ct. 1060, 103 L. Ed. 2d 334. Before Padilla, we had declined to decide whether the Sixth Amendment had any relevance to a lawyer's advice about matters not part of a criminal proceeding. Perhaps some advice of that kind would have to meet Strickland's reasonableness standard--but then again, perhaps not: No precedent of our own “ dictated” the answer. Teague, 489 U.S., at 301, 109 S. Ct. 1060, 103 L. Ed. 2d 334. And as the lower courts filled the vacuum, they almost uniformly insisted on what Padilla called the “categorica[l] to advise about a non-criminal consequence could violate the Sixth Amendment would not have been--in fact, was not--“apparent to all reasonable jurists” prior to our decision. Lambrix, 520 U.S., at 527-528, 117 S. Ct. 1517, 137 L. Ed. 2d 771. Padillathus announced a “new rule.”

The separate opinions in Padilla objected to just this aspect of the Court's ruling. Dissents have been known to exaggerate the novelty of majority opinions; and “the mere existence of a dissent,” like the existence of conflicting authority in state or lower federal courts, does not establish that a rule is new. Beard v. Banks, 542 U.S. 406, 416, n. 5, 124 S. Ct. 2504, 159 L. Ed. 2d 494 (2004); see Williams v. Taylor , 529 U.S., 362, 410, 120 S. Ct. 1495, 146 L. Ed. 2d 389 (2000). But the concurring and dissenting opinions in Padilla were on to something when they described the line the Court was crossing. “Until today,” Justice Alito wrote, “the longstanding and unanimous position of the federal courts was that reasonable defense counsel generally need only advise a client about the direct consequences of a criminal conviction.” 559 U.S., at 375-376, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1487, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284, 300 (opinion concurring in judgment). Or again, this time from Justice Scalia: “[U]ntil today,” the Sixth Amendment guaranteed only “legal advice directly related to defense against prosecution” of a criminal charge. Id., at 389, (dissenting opinion). One need not agree with any of the separate opinions' criticisms of Padilla to concur with their view that it modified governing law.

III

Chaidez offers, and the dissent largely adopts, a different account of Padilla, in which we did no more than apply Strickland to a new set of facts. On Chaidez's view, Strickland insisted “[f]rom its inception” that all aspects of a criminal lawyer's performance pass a test of “ 'reasonableness under prevailing professional norms' ”: The decision thus foreclosed any “categorical distinction that prior finding.

See United States v. Kwan, 407 F.3d 1005, 1015-1017 (CA9 2005); United States v. Couto, 311 F.3d 179, 188 (CA2 2002); Downs-Morgan v. United States, 765 F.2d 1534, 1540-1541 (CA11 1985).

But Chaidez's (and the dissent's) story line is wrong, for reasons we have mostly already noted: Padilla had to develop new law, establishing that the Sixth Amendment applied at all, before it could assess the performance of Padilla's lawyer under Strickland. See supra, at 349, 352. 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 156-157. Our first order of business was thus to consider whether the widely accepted distinction between direct and collateral consequences categorically foreclosed Padilla's claim, whatever the level of his attorney's performance. We did not think, as Chaidez argues, that Strickland barred resort to that distinction. Far from it: norms and so forth), and none of it followed ineluctably from prior law.

The dissent's entire analysis founders on this most basic point. In its lengthy description of Padilla, the dissent picks up in the middle-- after the Court concluded that the direct-collateral distinction did not preclude finding that Padilla's lawyer provided ineffective assistance under the Sixth Amendment. See post, at 361-363, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 164-166. The dissent justifies ignoring that threshold conclusion on the ground that “ Padilla declined to embrace the . . . distinction between collateral and direct consequences” and “stated very clearly that it found the distinction irrelevant” to the case. Post, at 364, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 166. But it is exactly in refusing to apply the direct-collateral distinction that the Padilla Court did something novel. Before then, as the Court forthrightly acknowledged, that distinction would have doomed Padilla's claim in well-nigh every court in the United States. See 559 U.S., at 364-365, and n. 9, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1480-1481, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284; supra, at 352, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 159.

to Chaidez's case. And because it lived in harmony with the exclusion of claims like hers from the Sixth Amendment, it does not establish what she needs to--that all reasonable judges, prior to Padilla, thought they were living in a Padilla-like world.

See also Resendiz v. Kovensky, 416 F.3d 952, 957 (CA9 2005) (“[B]ecause immigration consequences remain collateral, the failure of counsel to advise his client of the potential immigration consequences of a conviction does not violate the Sixth Amendment”); Russo v. United States, 1999 U.S. App. LEXIS 5024, 1999 WL 164951, *2 (“[C]ounsel cannot be found ineffective for the mere failure to inform a defendant of the collateral consequences of a plea, such as deportation” (relying on United States v. Santelises, 509 F.2d 703, 704 (CA2 1975) ( per curiam).

Nor, finally, does St. Cyr have any relevance here. That decision stated what is common sense (and what we again 548 F.3d, at 335-336; Broomes v. Ashcroft, 358 F.3d 1251, 1256-1257 (CA10 2004); United States v. Fry, 322 F.3d 1198, 1200-1201 (CA9 2003). It took Padilla to decide that in assessing such a lawyer's performance, the Sixth Amendment sets the standard.

The dissent claims the opposite, averring that lower court “decisions show nothing more than that the underlying professional norms had not yet evolved to require attorneys to provide advice about deportation consequences.” Post, at 365-366, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 167. But the dissent cannot point to a single decision stating that a lawyer's failure to offer advice about deportation met professional norms; all the decisions instead held that a lawyer's breach of those norms was constitutionally irrelevant because deportation was a collateral consequence. See supra, at 350, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 167. Had courts in fact considered professional standards in the slew of cases before Padilla that presented Padilla-like claims, they would have discovered as early as 1968 that the American Bar Association instructed criminal lawyers to advise their non-citizen clients about the risks of deportation. See 3 ABA Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to Pleas of Guilty § 3.2(b), Commentary, p. 71 (App. Draft 1968). The difficulty in upholding such claims prior to Padilla had nothing to do with courts' view of professional norms and everything to do with their use of the direct-collateral divide.

Chaidez makes two back-up arguments in her merits briefs--that Teague's bar on retroactivity does not apply when a petitioner challenges a federal conviction, or at least does not do so when she makes a claim of ineffective assistance. Brief for Petitioner 27-39. But Chaidez did not include those issues in her petition for certiorari. Nor, still more critically, did she adequately raise them in the lower courts. Only her petition for rehearing en banc in the Seventh Circuit at all questioned Teague's applicability, and her argument there--that a “ Teague-light” standard should apply to challenges to federal convictions--differs from the ones she has made in this Court. See Petition for Rehearing and for Rehearing En Banc in No. 10-3623 (CA7), p. 13. Moreover, we cannot find any case in which a federal court has considered Chaidez's contention that Teague should not apply to ineffective assistance claims. “[M]indful that we are a court of review, not of first view,” we decline to rule on Chaidez's new arguments. Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 718, n. 7, 125 S. Ct. 2113, 161 L. Ed. 2d 1020 (2005).

IV

This Court announced a new rule in Padilla. Under Teague, defendants whose convictions became final prior to Padilla therefore cannot benefit from its holding. We accordingly affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

It is so ordered.

Concur by:THOMAS

Concur

Justice Thomas, concurring in the judgment.

In Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284 (2010), this Court held that the Sixth Amendment requires an attorney for a criminal defendant does not extend--either prospectively or retrospectively--to advice concerning the collateral consequences arising from a guilty plea. I, therefore, believe that the Teague analysis is unnecessary and thus concur only in the judgment.

Dissent by:SOTOMAYOR

Dissent

Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Ginsburg joins, dissenting.

The Court holds today that Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284 (2010), announced a “new” rule within the meaning of Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 301, 109 S. Ct. 1060, 103 L. Ed. 2d 334 (1989), and so does not apply to convictions that became final before its announcement. That is wrong, because Padilla did nothing more than apply the existing rule of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1984), in a new setting, the same way the Court has done repeatedly in the past: by surveying the relevant professional norms and concluding that they unequivocally required attorneys to provide advice about the immigration consequences of a guilty plea. Because Padilla fell squarely within the metes and bounds established by Strickland, I respectfully dissent.

I

A

The majority correctly sets forth the governing legal principles under Teague and Strickland. Ante, at 347-349, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 156-157. The Teague inquiry turns centrally on the “nature of the rule” question, and for that reason, “[w]here the beginning point is a rule of . . . general application, . . . it will be the infrequent case that yields a result so novel that it forges a new rule.” Wright v. West, 505 U.S. 277, 308-309, 112 S. Ct. 2482, 120 L. Ed. 2d 225 (1992) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment); see ante, at 347-349, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 156-157. The majority makes the important observation that “when all we do is apply a general standard to the kind of factual circumstances it was meant to address, we will rarely state a new rule.” Ibid. It makes sense, then, that “garden-variety applications of . . . Strickland . . . do not produce new rules.” Ante, at 348, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 156.

In Strickland, we did not provide a comprehensive definition of deficient performance, and instead held that “[t]he proper measure of attorney performance remains simply reasonableness under prevailing professional norms.” 466 U.S., at 688, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674. Strickland's reasonableness prong therefore takes its content from the standards by which lawyers judge their professional found that an application of Strickland resulted in a new rule.

See, e.g., Lafler v. Cooper, 566 U.S. 156, 170-172, 132 S. Ct. 1376, 182 L. Ed. 2d 398 (2012) (incorrect advice leading to a plea offer's rejection); Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 125 S. Ct. 2456, 162 L. Ed. 2d 360 (2005) (failure to investigate evidence the prosecution intended to use to prove an aggravating circumstance in a capital case); Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 123 S. Ct. 2527, 156 L. Ed. 2d 471 (2003) (failure to investigate a defendant's social history in a capital case); Roe v. Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. 470, 120 S. Ct. 1029, 145 L. Ed. 2d 985 (2000) (failure to consult with a defendant regarding whether to pursue an appeal); Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 391, 120 S. Ct. 1495, 146 L. Ed. 2d 389 (2000) (failure to investigate a defendant's background for the purposes of mitigation evidence in a capital case); Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 106 S. Ct. 366, 88 L. Ed. 2d 203 (1985) (failure to provide effective assistance during plea negotiations).

Significantly, we have previously found that applications of Strickland to new factual scenarios are not barred under 28 U.S.C. §2254(d)(1) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996(AEDPA). Section 2254(d)(1) precludes habeas relief unless a state court decision violates “clearly by precedent.” 489 U.S., at 301, 109 S. Ct. 1060, 103 L. Ed. 2d 334 (plurality opinion). In Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 522, 123 S. Ct. 2527, 156 L. Ed. 2d 471 (2003), for example, we found that Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 120 S. Ct. 1495, 146 L. Ed. 2d 389 (2000), “made no new law” when it held that Strickland extended to an attorney's responsibility to conduct a background investigation in a capital case. Rather, we explained that “in referring to the ABA Standards for Criminal Justice as guides, [ Williams] applied the same 'clearly established' precedent of Strickland we apply today.” 539 U.S., at 522, 123 S. Ct. 2527, 156 L. Ed. 2d 471. Similarly, in Lafler v. Cooper, 566 U.S. 156, 162-163, 132 S. Ct. 1376, 182 L. Ed. 2d 398 (2012), we rejected the argument advanced by the Solicitor General that the Sixth Amendment did not extend to advice about a plea offer because it did not impact the fairness of the trial. Instead, we simply held that Strickland applied to this form of attorney misconduct.

AEDPA of course differs from the Teague rule in other important respects. See, e.g., Greene v. Fisher, 565 U.S. 34, 39, 565 U.S. 34, 132 S. Ct. 38, 181 L. Ed. 2d 336 (2011)). But these differences aside, the fact that we have repeatedly found AEDPA cases involving Strickland to be controlled by established precedent underscores that the application of Strickland in a new context should almost never result in a new rule.

In short, where we merely apply Strickland in a way that corresponds to an evolution in professional norms, we make no new law.

B

Contrary to the majority's reconstruction, Padilla is built squarely on the foundation laid out by Strickland. Padilla relied upon controlling precedent. It began by reciting the basic rule that “[u]nder Strickland, we first determine whether counsel's representation 'fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.' Padilla, 559 U.S., at ___, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1482, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284, 294 (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S., at 688, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674). We recognized that “[t]he first prong--constitutional deficiency--is necessarily linked to the practice and expectations of the legal [T]he proper measure of attorney performance remains simply reasonableness under prevailing professional norms.' Padilla, 559 U.S., at 366, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1482, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284, 294 (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S., at 688, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674).

recommend that a defendant who had committed a deportable offense not be removed from the country. Congress entirely eliminated this procedure in 1990. 104 Stat. 5050. Then the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), 110 Stat. 3009-596, abolished the Attorney General's authority to grant discretionary relief from removal for all but a small number of offenses. Padilla, 559 U.S., at 363, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1480, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284, 292. These changes in immigration law meant that for a noncitizen who committed a removable offense, “removal [had become] practically inevitable.” Id., at 364

In parallel with these developments, the standards of professional responsibility relating to immigration had become more demanding. “For at least the past 15 years,” we observed in Padilla, “professional norms have generally imposed an obligation on counsel to provide advice on the deportation consequences of a client's plea.” Id., at 372, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1485, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284, 297-298. Citing an array of practice guides and professional responsibility manuals, we noted that “[t]he weight of prevailing professional norms supports the view that counsel must advise her client regarding the risk of deportation.” Id., at 367, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1482, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284, 294, 300-301. Indeed, “authorities of every stripe--including the American Bar Association, criminal defense and public defender organizations, authoritative treatises, and state and city bar publications--universally require defense attorneys to advise as to the risk of deportation consequences for non-citizen clients.” Ibid., at ___, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1482, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284, 295 (internal quotation marks omitted).

We drew further support for our conclusion that professional standards required advice about deportation consequences Ed. 2d 284, 295 (quoting St. Cyr, 533 U.S., at 322, 121 S. Ct. 2271, 150 L. Ed. 2d 347).

Our application of Strickland in Padilla followed naturally from these earlier observations about changes in immigration law and the accompanying evolution of professional norms. When we decided St. Cyr and Padilla, nothing about Strickland's substance or applicability had changed. The only difference from prior law was that the underlying professional norms had changed such that counsel's failure to give this advice now amounted to constitutionally deficient performance. Both before Padilla and after, counsel was obligated to follow the relevant professional norms. It was only because those norms reflected changes in immigration law that Padilla reached the result it did, not because the Sixth Amendment right had changed at all.

Even before IIRIRA and St. Cyr, lawyers of course understood that it was good practice to inform clients of the deportation consequences of a plea. See ante, at 357, n. 15, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 162 (citing 3 ABA Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to Pleas of Guilty § 3.2(b), Commentary, p. 71 (App. Draft 1968)). Following the sea change in immigration law, however, the professional norms had become so established and universally recognized that the measure of constitutionally adequate performance now included giving such advice in the form Padilla recognized. See 559 U.S., at 367-368, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1482-1483, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284.

II

A

Accepting that routine applications of Strickland do not result in new rules, the majority nevertheless holds that Padilla went a step further. In its view, Padilla “ 'br[oke] new ground' ” by addressing the threshold question of whether advice about deportation is a collateral consequence of a criminal conviction that falls within the scope of the Sixth Amendment. Ante, at 353-354, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 158-159. But that is wrong, because Padilla declined to embrace the very distinction between collateral and direct consequences of a criminal conviction that the majority says it did. In fact, the Court stated very clearly that it found the distinction irrelevant for the purposes of determining a defense lawyer's obligation to provide advice about the immigration consequences of a plea. 559 U.S., at 364-369, n. 8, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1480-1481, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284. We asserted that we had “never applied a distinction between direct and collateral consequences to define the scope of constitutionally 'reasonable professional assistance' required under Strickland,” and concluded that “[w]hether that distinction is appropriate is a question we need not consider in this case.” Id., at 365, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1481, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284, 293 (emphasis added). The distinction was “ill suited” to the task at hand, we explained, because deportation has a “close connection to the criminal process,” and is “uniquely difficult to classify as either a direct or a collateral consequence.” Id., at 366, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1482, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284, 294. Indeed, “[o]ur law ha[d] enmeshed criminal convictions and the penalty of deportation for nearly a century,” and we had “long recognized” that deportation is “particularly severe.” Id., at 365, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1481, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284, 293.

See, e.g., INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 322, 121 S. Ct. 2271, 150 L. Ed. 2d 347 (2001) (noting that “[p]reserving the client's right to remain in the United States may be more important . . . than any potential jail sentence” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Jordan v. De George, 341 U.S. 223, 243, 71 S. Ct. 703, 95 L. Ed. 886 (1951) (Jackson, J., dissenting) (deportation proceedings “practically . . . are [criminal] for they extend the criminal process of sentencing to include on the same convictions an additional punishment”); Fong Haw Tan v. Phelan, 333 U.S. 6, 10, 68 S. Ct. 374, 92 L. Ed. 433 (1948) (“[D]eportation is a drastic measure and at times the equivalent of banishment or exile”); Ng Fung Ho v. White, 259 U.S. 276, 284, 42 S. Ct. 492, 66 L. Ed. 938 (1922) (deportation may result in “loss of both property and life; or of all that makes life worth living”); Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698, 740, 13 S. Ct. 1016, 37 L. Ed. 905 (1893) (Brewer, J., dissenting) (“Every one knows that to be forcibly taken away from home, and family, and friends, and business, and property, and sent across the ocean to a distant land, is punishment; and that oftentimes most severe and cruel”).

decisional history, the majority's analysis unravels.

B

The majority finds that the “legal landscape,” Graham v. Collins, 506 U.S. 461, 468, 113 S. Ct. 892, 122 L. Ed. 2d 260 (1993), before Padilla was nearly uniform in its rejection of Strickland's application to the deportation consequences of a plea. Ante, at 350-354, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 157-159. It concludes that the evolved to require attorneys to provide advice about deportation consequences.

Cases from the period following IIRIRA and St. Cyr undermine the majority's generalizations about reasoning.

See United States v. Mora-Gomez, 875 F. Supp. 1208, 1212 (ED Va. 1995) (“[T]he clear consensus is that an affirmative misstatement regarding deportation may constitute ineffective assistance”).

See Rubio v. State, 124 Nev. 1032, 1041, 194 P.3d 1224, 1230 (2008) ( per curiam) (“Like other jurisdictions, we recognize the particularly harsh and penal nature of deportation. The Supreme Court of the United States has described deportation as 'a drastic measure and at times the equivalent of banishment or exile' and further depicted it as 'a penalty.' . . . Perhaps understanding the harshness of deportation, a growing number of jurisdictions have adopted the affirmative misrepresentation exception to the collateral consequence rule”); People v. Correa, 108 Ill. 2d 541, 550-552, 485 N.E.2d 307, 311, 92 Ill. Dec. 496 (1985); People v. McDonald, 1 N.Y.3d 109, 113-115, 802 N.E.2d 131, 134-135, 769 N.Y.S.2d 781 (2003); see also Alguno v. State, 892 So. 2d 1200, 1201 (Fla. App. 2005) ( per curiam); State v. Rojas-Martinez, 2005 UT 86, ¶¶ 15-20, 125 P.3d 930, 933-935; In re Yim, 139 Wash. 2d 581, 588, 989 P.2d 512, 516 (1999).

They also foreshadowed the Court's reasoning in Padilla by basing their analysis of the relevant professional norms on the special nature of deportation, the ABA standards governing immigration practice, and the Court's assessment of those standards in St Cyr. See Kwan, 407 F.3d, at 1016 (“That counsel may have misled [the defendant] out of ignorance is no excuse. It is a basic rule of professional conduct that a lawyer must . . . [remain] abreast of changes in the law and its practice. . . . Counsel's performance . . . fell below the [ABA]'s ethical standard for criminal defense attorneys with respect to immigration consequences. The Supreme Court noted this standard in [ St. Cyr]”); Couto, 311 F.3d, at 187-191 (citing St. Cyr and the relevant ABA standards, and concluding that “recent Supreme Court authority supports [a] broader view of attorney responsibility” that encompasses affirmative misrepresentations about deportation consequences); see also Downs-Morgan, 765 F.2d, at 1541 (“[D]eportation and exclusion [are] harsh consequences”).

The majority believes that these decisions did not meaningfully alter the state of the law in the lower courts before Padilla, because they merely consequence, the “wall between direct and collateral consequences” that the lower courts had erected, ante, at 352-353, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 158, had already been dealt a serious blow by the time the Court decided Padilla.

As the majority points out, these misrepresentation cases stopped short of imposing an affirmative obligation misleading by silence and affirmative misrepresentation hardly establishes the rationality of the distinction. Notably, the Court offers no reasoned basis for believing that such a distinction can be extracted from Strickland.

The majority cites a law review article for the proposition that the categorical consequences rule is “one of 'the most widely recognized rules of American law.' ” Ante, at ___, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 158 (quoting Chin & Holmes, Effective Assistance of Counsel and the Consequences of Guilty Pleas, 87 Cornell L. Rev. 697, 706 (2002)). But the article was, in fact, quite critical of the rule. The authors explained that “[t]he real work of the conviction is performed by the collateral consequences,” and that the direct/collateral distinction in the context of ineffective-assistance claims was “surprising because it seems inconsistent with the framework that the Supreme Court . . . laid out” in Strickland. Chin & Holmes, 87 Cornell L. Rev., at 700-701.

To be sure, lower courts did continue to apply the distinction between collateral and direct consequences after St. Cyr. See ante, at 356-358, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 161-162; see, e.g., Broomes v. Ashcroft, 358 F.3d 1251, 1256-1257 (CA10 2004). Even so, and even assuming the misrepresentation cases did not call the distinction into question, the existence of these lower court decisions is not dispositive. “[T]he standard for determining when a case establishes a new rule is 'objective,' and the mere existence of conflicting authority does not necessarily mean a rule is new.” Wright, 505 U.S., at 304, 112 S. Ct. 2482, 120 L. Ed. 2d 225 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment) (citing Stringer v. Black, 503 U.S. 222, 237, 112 S. Ct. 1130, 117 L. Ed. 2d 367 (1992)); see Graham v. Collins, 506 U.S. 461, 506, 113 S. Ct. 892, 122 L. Ed. 2d 260 (1993) (Souter, J., dissenting).

Where the application of Strickland was straightforward, rooted in 15 years of professional standards and the Court's prior St. Cyr decision, there is no reason to put these lower court cases, many from more than a decade earlier, ahead of this Court's simple and clear reasoning in Padilla. Nevertheless, the majority reaches the paradoxical conclusion that by declining to apply a collateral-consequence doctrine the Court had never adopted, Padilla announced a new rule.

III

What truly appears to drive the majority's analysis is its sense that Padilla occasioned a serious disruption in lower court decisional reasoning. See, e.g., ante, at 353, 185 L. Ed. 2d, at 158-159 (“If that norms with respect to any advice they provide to clients.

* * *

Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the Seventh Circuit and hold that Padilla applies retroactively on collateral review to convictions that became final before its announcement. With respect, I dissent.