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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 91-1738
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JERRY D. GILMORE, PETITIONER v. KEVIN
TAYLOR
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the seventh circuit
[June 7, 1993]

  Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the
Court.
  Respondent Kevin Taylor was convicted of murder by
an Illinois jury and sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment.
After his conviction and sentence became final, he sought
federal habeas relief on the ground that the jury instruc-
tions given at his trial violated the Fourteenth
Amendment's Due Process Clause.  The Court of Appeals
for the Seventh Circuit granted relief on the basis of its
recent decision in Falconer v. Lane, 905 F. 2d 1129 (1990),
which held that the Illinois pattern jury instructions on
murder and voluntary manslaughter were unconstitutional
because they allowed a jury to return a murder verdict
without considering whether the defendant possessed a
mental state that would support a voluntary-manslaughter
verdict instead.  We conclude that the rule announced in
Falconer was not dictated by prior precedent, and is
therefore -new- within the meaning of Teague v. Lane,
489 U. S. 288 (1989).  Accordingly, the Falconer rule may
not provide the basis for federal habeas relief in
respondent's case.
  Early one morning in September 1985, respondent

became involved in a dispute with his former wife and her
live-in boyfriend, Scott Siniscalchi, over custodial arrange-
ments for his daughter.  A fracas ensued between the
three adults, during which respondent stabbed Siniscalchi
seven times with a hunting knife.  Siniscalchi died from
these wounds, and respondent was arrested at his home
later that morning.
  Respondent was charged with murder.  Ill. Rev. Stat.,
ch. 38, -9-1 (1985).  At trial, he took the stand and
admitted killing Siniscalchi, but claimed he was acting
under a sudden and intense passion provoked by
Siniscalchi, and was therefore only guilty of the lesser-
included offense of voluntary manslaughter.  -9-2.  At the
close of all the evidence, the trial judge found that there
was sufficient evidence supporting respondent's -heat of
passion- defense to require an instruction on voluntary
manslaughter, and instructed the jury as follows:
-To sustain the charge of murder, the State must
prove the following propositions:
      -First: That the Defendant performed the acts which
caused the death of Scott Siniscalchi; and
      -Second: That when the Defendant did so he in-
tended to kill or do great bodily harm to Scott
Siniscalchi; or he knew that his act would cause
death or great bodily harm to Scott Siniscalchi; or he
knew that his acts created a strong probability of
death or great bodily harm to Scott Siniscalchi; or he
was committing the offense of home invasion.
      -If you find from your consideration of all the
evidence that each one of these propositions has been
proved beyond a reasonable doubt, you should find the
Defendant guilty.
      -If you find from your consideration of all the
evidence that any one of these propositions has not
been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, you should
find the Defendant not guilty.
             .        .        .       .        .
      -To sustain the charge of voluntary manslaughter,
the evidence must prove the following propositions:
      -First: That the Defendant performed the acts which
caused the death of Scott Siniscalchi; and
      -Second: That when the Defendant did so he in-
tended to kill or do great bodily harm to Scott
Siniscalchi; or he knew that such acts would [sic]
death or great bodily harm to Scott Siniscalchi; or he
knew that such acts created a strong probability of
death or great bodily harm to Scott Siniscalchi;
      -Third: That when the Defendant did so he acted
under a sudden and intense passion, resulting from
serious provocation by another.
      -If you find from your consideration of all the
evidence that each one of these propositions has been
proved beyond a reasonable doubt, you should find the
Defendant guilty.
      -If you find from your consideration of all the
evidence that any one of these propositions has not
been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, you should
find the Defendant not guilty.
      -As stated previously, the Defendant is charged with
committing the offense of murder and voluntary
manslaughter.  If you find the Defendant guilty, you
must find him guilty of either offense; but not both.
On the other hand, if you find the Defendant not
guilty, you can find him not guilty on either or both
offenses.-  App. 128-131.
These instructions were modeled after, and virtually
identical to, the Illinois pattern jury instructions on
murder and voluntary manslaughter, which were formally
adopted in 1981, Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions-
Criminal 7.02 and 7.04 (2d ed. 1981), but had been
uniformly given by Illinois judges since 1961, when
the State enacted the definitions of murder and vol-
untary manslaughter that governed until 1987.  See
Haddad, Allocation of Burdens in Murder-VoluntaryManslaughter Cases: An Affirmative Defense Approach,
59 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 23 (1982).  Respondent did not
object to the instructions.  The jury returned a guilty
verdict on the murder charge, and respondent was sen-
tenced to 35 years' imprisonment.
  Respondent unsuccessfully challenged his conviction on
appeal, then filed a petition for state postconviction relief.
The Circuit Court dismissed the petition.  But while
respondent's appeal was pending, the Illinois Supreme
Court invalidated the Illinois pattern jury instructions on
murder and voluntary manslaughter.  People v. Reddick,
123 Ill. 2d 184, 526 N. E. 2d 141 (1988).  According to the
Supreme Court, under Illinois law, the instructions should
have placed on the prosecution the burden of disproving
beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant possessed
a mitigating mental state.  Id., at 197, 526 N. E. 2d, at
146.  Respondent sought to take advantage of Reddick on
appeal, but the Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of
postconviction relief on the ground that Reddick did not
involve constitutional error, the only type of error that
would support the grant of relief.  People v. Taylor, 181
Ill. App. 3d 538, 536 N. E. 2d 1312 (1989).  The Illinois
Supreme Court denied respondent's request for leave to
appeal.
  Having exhausted his state remedies, respondent sought
federal habeas relief, attacking his conviction on the
ground that the jury instructions given at his trial vio-
lated due process.  Eleven days later, the Court of Ap-
peals for the Seventh Circuit held as much in Falconer v.
Lane, 905 F. 2d 1129 (1990).  The defect identified by the
Falconer court was quite different from that identified in
Reddick: Because the murder instructions preceded the
voluntary-manslaughter instructions, but did not expressly
direct the jury that it could not return a murder convic-
tion if it found that the defendant possessed a mitigating
mental state, it was possible for a jury to find that a
defendant was guilty of murder without even considering
whether he was entitled to a voluntary-manslaughter
conviction instead.  905 F. 2d, at 1136.  -Explicit misdirec-
tion on this scale,- the Seventh Circuit held, -violates the
constitutional guarantee of due process.-  Id., at 1137.  In
reaching this conclusion, the Court of Appeals placed
principal reliance on Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U. S. 141
(1973).
  At respondent's federal habeas proceeding, the State
conceded that the jury instructions given at respondent's
trial were unconstitutional under Falconer, but argued
that the rule announced in Falconer was -new- within the
meaning of Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989), and
therefore could not form the basis for federal habeas
relief.  The District Court agreed, but the Court of Ap-
peals reversed.  954 F. 2d 441 (1992).  Although the
Seventh Circuit now thought Cupp was -too general to
have compelled Falconer within the meaning of Teague,-
954 F. 2d, at 452, it concluded that Boyde v. California,
494 U. S. 370 (1990), and Connecticut v. Johnson, 460
U. S. 73 (1983) (plurality opinion), were -specific enough
to have compelled- the result reached in Falconer, 954
F. 2d, at 453.  Accordingly, the Court of Appeals held that
the rule announced in Falconer was not -new- within the
meaning of Teague, and that Teague therefore did not bar
the retroactive application of Falconer in respondent's
case.  Id., at 453.  We granted certiorari, 506 U. S. --
(1992), and now reverse.
  The retroactivity of Falconer under Teague and its
progeny is the only question before us in this case.
Subject to two narrow exceptions, a case that is decided
after a defendant's conviction and sentence become final
may not provide the basis for federal habeas relief if it
announces a -new rule.-  Graham v. Collins, 506 U. S.
--, -- (1993) (slip op., at 5); Stringer v. Black, 503
U. S. --, -- (1992) (slip op., at 4); Teague, supra, at
305-311 (plurality opinion).  Though we have offered
various formulations of what constitutes a new rule, put
-meaningfully for the majority of cases, a decision an-
nounces a new rule `if the result was not dictated by
precedent existing at the time the defendant's conviction
became final.'-  Butler v. McKellar, 494 U. S. 407, 412
(1990) (quoting Teague, supra, at 301 (emphasis in origi-
nal)); see also Graham, supra, at --, (slip op., at 5);
Sawyer v. Smith, 497 U. S. 227, 234 (1990); Saffle v.
Parks, 494 U. S. 484, 488 (1990); Penry v. Lynaugh, 492
U. S. 302, 329 (1989).  -The `new rule' principle . . .
validates reasonable, good-faith interpretations of existing
precedents made by state courts,- 494 U. S., at 414, and
thus effectuates the States' interest in the finality of
criminal convictions and fosters comity between federal
and state courts.
  We begin our analysis with the actual flaw found by the
Falconer court in the challenged jury instructions.  It was
not that they somehow lessened the State's burden of
proof below that constitutionally required by cases such
as In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 (1970); nor was it that
the instructions affirmatively misstated applicable state
law.  (The Court of Appeals in no way relied upon People
v. Reddick, supra, which the Illinois Supreme Court had
subsequently held was subject to prospective application
only.  People v. Flowers, 138 Ill. 2d 218, 561 N. E. 2d 674
(1990).)  Rather, the flaw identified by the Falconer court
was that when the jury instructions were read consecu-
tively, with the elements of murder set forth before the
elements of voluntary manslaughter, a juror could con-
clude that the defendant was guilty of murder after
applying the elements of that offense without continuing
on to decide whether the elements of voluntary man-
slaughter were also made out, so as to justify returning
a verdict on that lesser offense instead.
  In concluding that this defect violated due process, the
Falconer court relied on Cupp v. Naughten, supra.  That
case involved a due process challenge to a jury instruction
that witnesses are presumed to tell the truth, which the
defendant claimed had the effect of shifting the burden of
proof on his innocence.  Because the jury had been
explicitly instructed on the defendant's presumption of
innocence as well as the State's burden of proving guilt
beyond a reasonable doubt, we held that the instruction
did not amount to a constitutional violation.  See 414
U. S., at 149.
  We think Cupp is an unlikely progenitor of the rule
announced in Falconer, a view now shared by the Seventh
Circuit.  The cases following Cupp in the Winship line
establish that States must prove guilt beyond a reasonable
doubt with respect to every element of the offense
charged, but that they may place on defendants the
burden of proving affirmative defenses.  See Martin v.
Ohio, 480 U. S. 228 (1987); Patterson v. New York, 432
U. S. 197 (1977).  The State argues that these later cases
support the proposition that any error committed in
instructing a jury with respect to an affirmative defense,
which does not lessen the State's Winship burden in
proving every element of the offense charged beyond a
reasonable doubt, is one wholly of state law.  Cf. Engle
v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107, 119-121, and n. 21 (1982)
(challenge to correctness of self-defense instructions under
state law provides no basis for federal habeas relief).  We
need not address this contention other than to say that
cases like Patterson and Martin make it crystal clear that
Cupp does not compel the result reached in Falconer.
  In its decision in the present case, the Court of Appeals
offered two additional cases which it believed did dictate
the result in Falconer.  The first is Boyde v. California,
supra.  There, we clarified the standard for reviewing on
federal habeas a claim that ambiguous jury instructions
impermissibly restricted the jury's consideration of -consti-
tutionally relevant evidence.-  494 U. S., at 380.  Al-
though Boyde was decided after respondent's conviction
and sentence became final, it did not work a change in
the law favoring criminal defendants, and therefore may
be considered in our Teague analysis.  See Lockhart v.
Fretwell, 506 U. S. --, -- (1993) (slip op., at 7-8).
Nevertheless, Boyde was a capital case, with respect to
which we have held that the Eighth Amendment requires
a greater degree of accuracy and fact finding than would
be true in a noncapital case.  See Herrera v. Collins, 506
U. S. --, -- (1993) (slip op., at 7); Beck v. Alabama,
447 U. S. 625 (1980).  Outside of the capital context, we
have never said that the possibility of a jury misapplying
state law gives rise to federal constitutional error.  To the
contrary, we have held that instructions that contain
errors of state law may not form the basis for federal
habeas relief.  Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U. S. -- (1991).
  Moreover, under the standard fashioned in Boyde the
relevant inquiry is -whether there is a reasonable likeli-
hood that the jury has applied the challenged instruction
in a way that prevents the consideration of constitu-
tionally relevant evidence.-  494 U. S., at 380.  In Boyde,
the petitioner argued that the trial court's instruction on
California's -catch-all- factor for determining whether a
defendant should be sentenced to death restricted the
jury's consideration of certain mitigating evidence.  Since
-[t]he Eighth Amendment requires that the jury be able
to consider and give effect to all relevant mitigating
evidence,- id., at 377-378, this evidence was plainly
constitutionally relevant.  In this case, by contrast,
petitioner argues that the challenged instructions pre-
vented the jury from considering evidence of his affirma-
tive defense.  But in a noncapital case such as this there
is no counterpart to the Eighth Amendment's doctrine of
-constitutionally relevant evidence- in capital cases.
  The Court of Appeals also relied on the plurality opinion
in Connecticut v. Johnson, 460 U. S. 73 (1983).  That case
dealt with the question whether an instruction that
violates due process under Sandstrom v. Montana, 442
U. S. 510 (1979), may be subject to harmless-error analy-
sis.  But in the course of deciding this question, the
plurality discussed the nature of Sandstrom error, and it
is this discussion on which the Court of Appeals relied
below.  Sandstrom is a lineal descendant of Winship; it
simply held that an instruction which creates a presump-
tion of fact violates due process if it relieves the State of
its burden of proving all of the elements of the offense
charged beyond a reasonable doubt.  The Court of Appeals
read the Johnson plurality's discussion of Sandstrom as
establishing the -due process principle- that instructions
are unconstitutional if they lead -the jury to ignore
exculpatory evidence in finding the defendant guilty of
murder beyond a reasonable doubt.-  954 F. 2d, at 453
(emphasis added).  But neither Sandstrom nor Johnson
can be stretched that far beyond Winship.  The most that
can be said of the instructions given at respondent's trial
is that they created a risk that the jury would fail to
consider evidence that related to an affirmative defense,
with respect to which Winship's due process guarantee
does not apply.  See Martin v. Ohio, supra; Patterson v.
New York, supra.
  Respondent offers a separate (but related) rationale he
claims is supported by our cases and also compels the
Seventh Circuit's ruling in Falconer: viz., the jury instruc-
tions given at his trial interfered with his fundamental
right to present a defense.  We have previously stated
that -the Constitution guarantees criminal defendants `a
meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense.'-
Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 683, 690 (1986) (quoting
California v. Trombetta, 467 U. S. 479, 485 (1984)).  But
the cases in which we have invoked this principle dealt
with the exclusion of evidence, see, e.g., Crane v. Ken-
tucky, supra; Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U. S. 284
(1973), or the testimony of defense witnesses, see, e.g.,
Webb v. Texas, 409 U. S. 95 (1972) (per curiam); Washing-
ton v. Texas, 388 U. S. 14 (1967).  None of them involved
restrictions imposed on a defendant's ability to present an
affirmative defense.  Drawing on these cases, respondent
argues that the right to present a defense includes the
right to have the jury consider it, and that confusing
instructions on state law which prevent a jury from
considering an affirmative defense therefore violate due
process.  But such an expansive reading of our cases
would make a nullity of the rule reaffirmed in Estelle v.
McGuire, supra, that instructional errors of state law
generally may not form the basis for federal habeas relief.
And the level of generality at which respondent invokes
this line of cases is far too great to provide any meaning-
ful guidance for purposes of our Teague inquiry.  See
Saffle v. Parks, 494 U. S., at 491.
  For the foregoing reasons, we disagree with the Seventh
Circuit and respondent that our precedent foreordained
the result in Falconer, and therefore hold that the rule
announced in Falconer is -new- within the meaning of
Teague.  All that remains to be decided is whether this
rule falls into one of Teague's exceptions, under which a
new rule may be given retroactive effect on collateral
review.  The first exception applies to those rules that
-plac[e] certain kinds of primary, private individual
conduct beyond the power of the criminal law-making
authority to proscribe.-  Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S., at 307
(plurality opinion) (internal quotation marks omitted).
This exception is clearly inapplicable here, since the rule
announced in Falconer does not -decriminalize- any class
of conduct.  See Saffle v. Parks, supra, at 495.  Teague's
second exception permits the retroactive application of
-`watershed rules of criminal procedure' implicating the
fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal pro-
ceeding.-  494 U. S., at 495 (quoting Teague, supra, at
311).  This exception is also inapplicable.  Although the
Falconer court expressed concern that the jury might have
been confused by the instructions in question, we cannot
say that its holding falls into that -small core of rules
requiring `observance of those procedures that . . . are
implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.'-  Graham
v. Collins, 506 U. S., at -- (slip op. at 16-17) (quot-
ing Teague, supra, at 311 (internal quotation marks

omitted)).
  Because the rule announced in Falconer is -new- within
the meaning of Teague, and does not fall into one of
Teague's exceptions, it cannot provide the basis for federal
habeas relief in respondent's case.  The judgment of the
Court of Appeals is therefore
                                              Reversed.