objective standard of reasonableness" and that "there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different". Additionally, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote that in order to presume prejudice under the standards set forth in United States v. Cronic, an attorney's failure to subject a case to adversarial scrutiny "must be complete." Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote that Cone would also need to demonstrate that the Tennessee court "applied Strickland to the facts of his case in an objectively unreasonable manner", but he was unable to do so in this case. Citing various "tactical reasons" why Cone's attorney did not present mitigating evidence, Chief Justice Rehnquist concluded that the jury still had an opportunity to consider whether "evidence of a mental disease or defect" should mitigate Cone's ultimate sentence. Finally, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote that the attorney's choice to waive his closing argument was a "tactical decision about which competent lawyers might disagree." Justice Stevens' dissenting opinion Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that Cone's attorney "entirely fail[ed] to subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing." Justice Stevens argued that the attorney's decision to not present mitigating evidence relied upon the incorrect assumption that the jury already had sufficient information regarding mitigating factors. Additionally, Justice Stevens argued that the jury would have viewed the absence of a closing argument as a "concession that no case for life could be made." Justice Stevens also noted that expert witnesses who testified at Cone's postconviction hearings described Cone's attorney's actions as "highly abnormal, and perhaps unprecedented in a capital case." In light of these facts, Justice Stevens argued that the Court should presume that Cone suffered a violation of his Sixth Amendment rights. Subsequent developments On remand, the Sixth Circuit ordered a new sentencing hearing "based on the purported invalidity of an aggravating circumstance found by the jury." In a per curiam opinion, Bell v. Cone (2005), the United States Supreme Court again reversed the Sixth Circuit's decision. The case then returned to the Sixth Circuit for a third time. In a 2007 opinion, the Sixth Circuit reconsidered whether the prosecution violated Cone's rights to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment by withholding police reports and witness statements that potentially could have corroborated his claims about the effects of his drug use. The Sixth Circuit rejected Cone's claims, holding