Williams v. Taylor (Terry Williams)

Williams v. Taylor
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 4, 1999 Decided April 18, 2000
Full case name	Terry Williams, Petitioner v. John Taylor, Warden
Citations	529 U.S. 362 (more) 146 L. Ed. 2d 389, 120 S. Ct. 1495
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	163 F.3d 860 (4th Cir. 1998)
Holding
The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Majority	Stevens (parts I, III, and IV), joined by O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
Majority	O'Connor, joined by Rehnquist, Kennedy, Thomas; Scalia (except for the footnote)
Plurality	Stevens (parts II and V), joined by Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
Concurrence	O'Connor (in part and in judgment), joined by Kennedy
Concur/dissent	Rehnquist, joined by Scalia, Thomas

Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000), was a United States Supreme Court case decided on April 18, 2000. It concerned a federal habeas corpus petition brought by convicted murderer Terry Williams, who alleged that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel in violation of the Supreme Court's prior decision in Strickland v. Washington. The Supreme Court's decision in this case was split across two majority opinions, one authored by John Paul Stevens and joined by five other justices, and the other authored by Sandra Day O'Connor and joined by four other justices.^[1]