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PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 24-6409
GEORGE MICHAEL STEEN,
Petitioner – Appellant,
v.
LESLIE COOLEY DISMUKES, Secretary of the Department of Adult Correction;
BRETT BULLIS, Warden of Avery-Mitchell CI,
Respondents – Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at
Statesville. Martin K. Reidinger, Chief District Judge. (5:23−cv−00046−MR)
Argued: May 6, 2026 Decided: July 8, 2026
Before DIAZ, Chief Judge, and RICHARDSON and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Richardson wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge
Diaz and Judge Heytens joined.
ARGUED: Mary Elizabeth McNeill, NORTH CAROLINA PRISONER LEGAL
SERVICES, INC., Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. Sherri Horner Lawrence,
NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Raleigh, North Carolina, for
Appellees. ON BRIEF: Jeff Jackson, Attorney General, NORTH CAROLINA
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellees.
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RICHARDSON, Circuit Judge:
A North Carolina jury convicted George Steen of committing sexual offenses
against a foster child in his care. Steen seeks federal habeas relief on the theory that his
trial counsel was ineffective because he failed to uncover additional records before trial.
The state trial court held that Steen failed to establish either prong of his ineffectiveassistance claim: that his trial counsel performed deficiently or that any deficiency
prejudiced Steen. The North Carolina Court of Appeals assumed deficient performance
and affirmed solely because Steen failed to show prejudice.
We first address which state court receives the deference required by 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254(d). The district court deferred only to the state trial court’s deficient-performance
decision. That was an error. The appellate decision finding no prejudice is the controlling
reasoned decision on the merits and is the only decision entitled to deference. But Steen
cannot overcome the substantial deference owed to the state appellate court’s finding that
he failed to show prejudice. So we affirm the district court’s denial of the writ.
I. BACKGROUND
Petitioner George Steen and his wife were asked to care for M.S., a four-year-old
foster child, after M.S. was removed from his biological family. M.S. lived with the Steens
for most of the next four years. The local department of social services removed M.S. from
the Steens’ home after M.S. began displaying troubling sexual behaviors at school. When
M.S. was eventually placed in a new foster home, he told his foster mother that Steen had
sexually abused him in the shower on numerous occasions. That accusation led to the
investigation that resulted in Steen’s convictions.
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At trial, the prosecution’s case relied heavily on the details in M.S.’s descriptions of
abuse. It argued that a child of M.S.’s age would not know about the sexual behavior he
described unless he had been exposed to it. So Steen’s trial strategy focused on two themes:
(1) highlighting M.S.’s reputation for untruthfulness and (2) identifying other sources of
M.S.’s sexual knowledge. The jury heard substantial evidence supporting each theme.
Various witnesses testified about M.S.’s history of lying. And several witnesses testified
about other sources of M.S.’s sexual knowledge, including M.S.’s previous experiences
with his biological family; an inappropriate overnight stay with Steen’s brother, who had
previously been accused of child molestation; and a sexual experience M.S. had with two
older boys in a different foster home—after he left Steen’s home but before he made any
allegations against Steen. Still, the jury convicted Steen of three counts of sexual offense
with a child under North Carolina law, and the North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed.
Steen later sought state post-conviction relief, claiming ineffective assistance of
counsel under the Sixth Amendment. See generally Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S.
668 (1984). His claim focused on his counsel’s decisions during pre-trial discovery. After
the state court allowed for post-conviction discovery, Steen identified social services
documents, counselor’s notes, and medical records concerning M.S. and his biological
sisters that trial counsel had not requested. These records indicated that M.S. witnessed
his biological father sexually abuse his sister; that M.S.’s sister sexually abused M.S.; and
that one of M.S.’s social workers noted his frequent lies. Because this evidence predated
M.S.’s accusation against Steen, Steen argued that it supported his fabrication theory and
identified another potential source of M.S.’s sexual knowledge.
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The state trial court denied relief. It recited Strickland’s two-prong test, under which
a defendant must show both deficient performance and prejudice, and concluded that Steen
had established neither prong.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed the denial on prejudice alone. It
assumed deficient performance and held that Steen could not show prejudice because the
undiscovered records would have been cumulative. The jury had already heard evidence
that M.S. lied and that he had prior exposure to sexual conduct. The court therefore
concluded that Steen could not “show that there is a reasonable probability that the jury
would have reached a different verdict had his trial counsel obtained” the additional
records. J.A. 384.
Steen then sought federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The district court
granted summary judgment against him, but it did so by deferring to the state trial court’s
deficient-performance ruling rather than by reviewing the state appellate court’s prejudice
analysis. Steen appealed.
II. DISCUSSION
We begin with a threshold issue. When a state prisoner’s federal claim has been
rejected at multiple levels of state court, a federal habeas court must identify the operative
state-court decision and the deference owed to it. The district court erred in deferring to
the state trial court. 1 We first address why we must reject the district court’s approach.
We review de novo the district court’s order denying Steen habeas relief. See
1
Bowman v. Stirling, 45 F.4th 740, 752 (4th Cir. 2022).
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We then address whether other grounds support the district court’s judgment. We conclude
that Steen’s petition fails under the correct approach, so we affirm on alternative grounds.
A. We Review Only The State Appellate Court’s Decision
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 sharply limited federal
habeas relief from state convictions. Chief among AEDPA’s reforms is the requirement
that federal courts defer to reasonable state-court merits decisions. When a state
petitioner’s claim has been “adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings,” no
federal court may grant the writ unless that adjudication “resulted in a decision” that was
(1) contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law,
or (2) based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). Steen
proceeds only on the theory that the state courts unreasonably applied federal law when
they rejected his ineffective-assistance claim.
AEDPA’s rule instructs federal habeas courts to defer to a state court’s reasonable
“decision” that “adjudicated on the merits” a petitioner’s “claim.” Id. But in many cases,
multiple levels of state court have adjudicated the petitioner’s claim. So a federal habeas
court must identify which state-court decision to review. “This is a straightforward inquiry
when the last state court to decide a prisoner’s federal claim explains its decision on the
merits in a reasoned opinion.” Wilson v. Sellers, 584 U.S. 122, 125 (2018). In such a case,
that reasoned decision is the relevant one, and “a federal habeas court simply reviews the
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specific reasons given by the state court and defers to those reasons if they are reasonable.”2
Id.
That standard approach resolves many § 2254 petitions. But not all. Some state
courts reject a claim without giving any reasons. Others—like the North Carolina Court
of Appeals here—reject a claim by analyzing one element without addressing the rest.
When a state court stays silent on part (or all) of a claim, identifying whether the relevant
state-court “decision . . . involved an unreasonable application” of federal law takes more
care. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). 3
Consider first a habeas claim rejected by the state courts without explanation. 4 In
that case, a federal habeas court must still answer the touchstone question of whether that
2
Reasonableness is judged as of the moment that the state court ruled on the merits.
That single moment fixes both the law and the record: The governing law is what the
Supreme Court had announced by then, see Greene v. Fisher, 565 U.S. 34, 40 (2011), and
the record is the one before the state court when it ruled, see Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S.
170, 181–82 (2011). We judge the decision on the law and facts the state court had at the
time of its last decision on the merits.
3
An unreasonable application of federal law is necessary but not sufficient to grant
the writ, because a state-court error isn’t alone enough to justify granting the writ. Instead,
a federal habeas court must affirmatively decide that the petitioner “is in custody in
violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a).
Of course, an unreasonable state-court decision may end up reaching the correct result. To
illustrate, consider an absurd example: A state habeas court rejects a male petitioner’s
ineffective-assistance claim based on the court’s understanding that the Sixth Amendment
protects only female defendants. That decision would be contrary to federal law, so a
federal court would afford the decision no deference. But the state court’s bottom-line
decision to reject the claim would still be correct if the claim ultimately lacked merit.
We may presume that a denial of relief without explanation is an adjudication on
4
the merits absent “any indication or state-law procedural principles to the contrary.”
Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 99 (2011).
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state-court “decision . . . involved an unreasonable application” of federal law. Id. And
the only way to be sure that the state court’s unreasoned decision “involved an
unreasonable application” of federal law is to ask whether “there was no reasonable basis
for the state court to deny relief.” Richter, 562 U.S. at 98. In other words, when left with
an unreasoned decision, a federal court asks whether any reasonable analysis could have
yielded the state court’s ultimate decision.
Second, consider a state-appellate-court decision that affirms a reasoned lowercourt decision without explanation. In such a case, we “look through” the unexplained
appellate-court decision to the lower court’s reasoning and presume that the higher court
“adopted the same reasoning.” See Wilson, 584 U.S. at 125. But that presumption can be
rebutted with evidence that the higher court “relied or most likely did rely on different
grounds than the lower” court. Id. at 125–26 (providing the example of an alternative
ground for affirmance that was central to briefing or “obvious in the record”). If the State
rebuts the presumption, the lower court’s explanation drops from our analysis, and we
review the higher court’s alternative grounds for decision. See id.5 Either way, the ultimate
question is still whether the highest state-court decision “involved an unreasonable
application” of federal law. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).
Our case poses a third scenario. The North Carolina Court of Appeals issued a
reasoned decision—but reasoned only on one prong. The court fully explained why Steen
5
This result may appear to give unreasoned state-court decisions more practical
deference than reasoned ones. See Richter, 562 U.S. at 99. AEDPA’s text nevertheless
requires that approach.
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failed to show prejudice, which was enough to reject his claim. It declined to analyze
deficient performance, even though the trial court had. So the relevant decision is neither
silent nor fully explained: It speaks to one prong and says nothing about the other. For the
prejudice prong, the path is settled—a federal court reviews the stated reasons and defers
to them if reasonable. Wilson, 584 U.S. at 125. The harder question is what to do with the
deficient-performance prong. May a federal court “look through” the appellate court’s
reasoned decision to the trial court’s analysis of that prong, as the district court did here?
Or must it review that prong de novo? 6
One might think that—because the appellate court declined to address deficient
performance—we ought to look through its decision to the trial court’s analysis of that
prong. But that’s wrong. Start with AEDPA’s touchstone: whether the state court’s
“decision . . . involved an unreasonable application” of federal law. 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254(d)(1). Look-through helps answer that question when a court gives no reasons to
review—it serves the “specific and narrow purpose” of identifying “the grounds for the
higher court’s decision” when that court doesn’t explain itself. Wilson, 584 U.S. at 133.
Even then, we only look through when the higher court’s unexplained affirmance likely
adopts the lower court’s reasoning. But when the higher court explains its reasoning, the
federal court no longer needs to make an AEDPA guess.
6
To be sure, if the state trial court had also limited its holding to the prejudice prong,
but we were required to assess the deficient-performance prong, our review would be de
novo. See Porter v. McCollum, 558 U.S. 30, 39 (2009) (per curiam); Bowman, 45 F.4th at
753 (citing cases). Our case is different because the state trial court did address the
deficient-performance prong—so there is a state-court decision we might defer to.
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That’s the situation we have here. The Court of Appeals told us why it rejected
Steen’s Strickland claim: Steen failed to show prejudice. So we review only the higher
court’s reason and ask whether it was reasonable. Id. at 125. Because the court told us
that deficient performance formed no part of its decision, deference cannot attach to that
prong. 7 A federal court that reaches the deficient-performance prong must therefore decide
it de novo. See Porter, 558 U.S. at 39 (reviewing the deficient-performance prong de novo
because “the state court did not decide whether [the petitioner’s] counsel was deficient”).
The district court instead deferred to an analysis the relevant decision left behind. That
was error. 8
The contrary approach treats separate Strickland prongs as if each could have its
own controlling decision. See Laird v. Sec’y, Pa. Dep’t of Corr., 129 F.4th 227, 243 (3d
Cir. 2025). 9 But that analysis elevates adjudication of an “element” over adjudication of a
7
We do not mean to suggest that a trial court’s decision can never be considered
when a higher court issues a reasoned decision analyzing the same element. In some
instances, it may be permissible. For example, when a higher court expressly incorporates
the reasoning of an inferior court, a federal habeas court may review the lower court’s
reasoning. See, e.g., Barker v. Fleming, 423 F.3d 1085, 1093 (9th Cir. 2005). But that
doesn’t mean the federal court is deferring to the lower court decision. Instead, the lower
court decision is relevant only insofar as it illuminates the controlling decision. Id.; cf.
Wilson, 584 U.S. at 125.
8
On appeal, the parties uncritically accepted the district court’s approach, failing to
brief this threshold legal question. Still, the parties’ incorrect framing of the case doesn’t
require (or allow) us to misapply the binding AEDPA framework. See Kamen v. Kemper
Fin. Servs., Inc., 500 U.S. 90, 99 (1991).
9
Courts across the country split on how to address this question. Some courts share
our approach of reviewing only the last reasoned court opinion; if that opinion analyzes
only one element of a claim, other elements are reviewed de novo even if a lower court
(Continued)
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“claim.” AEDPA demands the opposite. Rather than addressing the adjudication of an
element, issue, or prong, AEDPA focuses our attention on “a decision” resulting from the
adjudication of a “claim.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). So even when a state trial court has
addressed several elements of a claim, a higher state court’s reasoned decision disposing
of the claim with reference to only one element is still the relevant “decision” resolving
“the claim.” And AEDPA’s deferential rule only extends to the higher court’s stated
reasons for rejecting the claim—in this case, the North Carolina Court of Appeals’ analysis
of the prejudice prong.
AEDPA’s singular phrasing—“a decision”—supports our reading. The text trains
federal review on one operative decision. True, in the most literal sense a trial court’s
ruling is also “a decision” on the claim. But no one thinks the trial court’s decision controls
once a higher court has resolved the same claim. Consider an example. A state trial court
rejects a Strickland claim on both prongs. It clearly errs on the deficient-performance
previously addressed them. See Thomas v. Clements, 789 F.3d 760, 766–67 (7th Cir. 2015)
(addressing de novo the Strickland prong not addressed by state appellate court despite
state trial-court decision on that prong); Knight v. Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 958 F.3d 1035,
1045–46, 1046 n.3 (11th Cir. 2020) (same); cf. Barker, 423 F.3d at 1093 (“Thus, even when
one state court adhered to federal law, if the last court to review the claim erred, the federal
court should review the last decision in isolation and not in combination with decisions by
other state courts.”).
Other courts look to the last reasoned decision on each prong separately; so if one
court analyzes one element and another analyzes others, the courts lend AEDPA deference
to an amalgamation of reasoning. See Laird, 129 F.4th at 243 (noting that “the ‘last
reasoned’ decision for each Strickland prong, respectively, was made by different courts”);
Loden v. McCarty, 778 F.3d 484, 494–95 (5th Cir. 2015) (“Where a lower state court ruled
on an element that a higher state court did not, the lower state court’s decision is entitled
to AEDPA deference.”); Hammond v. Hall, 586 F.3d 1289, 1331 (11th Cir. 2009) (“Two
reasons were given by the Georgia courts, one at each level of review. . . . Each reason is
due deference.”).
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prong but reasonably applies the prejudice prong. On appeal, a state appellate court
corrects the deficient-performance issue but affirms on the prejudice prong. Should a
federal court still defer to the appellate court’s reasonable analysis of the deficientperformance prong despite the trial court’s earlier error? Of course. See Wilson, 584 U.S.
at 132–33 (explaining that a federal court should deny the writ when a state appellate
decision was decided on reasonable grounds despite the existence of an earlier
unreasonable decision).
The lesson runs in both directions. A trial court’s unreasonable analysis cannot
defeat deference to the appellate court’s reasonable analysis; a trial court’s reasonable
analysis cannot command deference on a ground the appellate court never reached. Either
way, one decision counts in this context: the appellate court’s.
B. The State Appellate Court’s Decision Was Reasonable
Having rejected the district court’s approach, we have two options before us:
(1) remand for the district court to conduct a new analysis under the proper framework; or
(2) address Steen’s claim under the correct standard. Because the state appellate court
thoroughly analyzed the prejudice prong—and the parties briefed the prejudice prong under
the correct standard—we take the second approach. We conclude that the state court
reasonably analyzed the prejudice prong of Steen’s claim. So we affirm the district court’s
ruling on alternative grounds.
A court addressing a Strickland claim can choose which prong to analyze first. See
Strickland, 466 U.S. at 697. Rather than review the deficient-performance prong de novo,
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we follow the state appellate court’s lead in disposing of this case on the prejudice prong.10
And, because the state appellate court analyzed that prong on the merits, we review its
reasoning under AEDPA’s deferential standard. Under that standard, we “may overturn a
state court’s application of federal law only if it is so erroneous that ‘there is no possibility
fairminded jurists could disagree that the state court’s decision conflicts with [the Supreme]
Court’s precedents.’” Nevada v. Jackson, 569 U.S. 505, 508–09 (2013) (per curiam)
(quoting Richter, 562 U.S. at 102).
To show Strickland prejudice, Steen had to show “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. So the state court’s job was to decide whether
Steen showed a reasonable probability that, had his trial counsel investigated and presented
the additional records, the outcome of the trial would have been different. And, adding in
AEDPA’s deferential standard of review, our job is to ask whether all fairminded jurists
would agree that the state court’s decision contravened or unreasonably applied Supreme
Court holdings. See McCarthy v. Hernandez, 608 U.S. ___, 2026 WL 1780410, at *4 (June
22, 2026) (per curiam). Unless that high bar is met, we may not grant the writ.
That bar is not met here, so we affirm. The North Carolina Court of Appeals
thoroughly explained its decision that Steen failed to show prejudice from his trial
10
When, as here, AEDPA deference is owed to only one element of a claim—the
element that the relevant state-court decision relied on—a federal court will often be best
served by addressing that element first. But that approach isn’t strictly necessary. The
district court could have permissibly disposed of this case on the deficient-performance
prong. But it would’ve needed to do so without deferring to the trial court.
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counsel’s alleged deficiency. The court acknowledged Steen’s argument that the additional
records would have provided evidence that M.S. tended to lie and that M.S. had other
exposure to sexual conduct. But the court ultimately concluded that such evidence would
have been cumulative. While some fairminded jurists could conclude that Steen did show
prejudice, others could disagree. So we cannot say that the state appellate court’s decision
“involved an unreasonable application” of “clearly established Federal law.” 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254(d)(1). When reasonable minds can disagree, AEDPA calls for deference to the
state-court decision. Accordingly, the judgment below is
AFFIRMED.
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