Woods v. Etherton

Holding: Given the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which provides that federal habeas relief is available to a state prisoner only if the state court’s decision was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law,” and requires that a state court’s decision that a habeas claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as “fairminded jurists could disagree on the correctness of the state court’s decision,” both Etherton’s appellate counsel and the state habeas court were to be afforded the benefit of the doubt, which the Sixth Circuit failed to give them.

Judgment: Reversed in a per curiam opinion on April 4, 2016.