[280] Justice Thomas
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion,
in which The CHIEF Justice and Justice Scalia joined.
In this case, we must determine whether the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit correctly applied our decision in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979), in concluding that the evidence against respondent Frank West was insufficient, as a matter of due process, to support his state-court conviction for grand larceny.
I
Between December 13 and December 26, 1978, someone broke into the Westmoreland County, Virginia, home of Angelo Cardova and stole items valued at approximately $3,500. On January 10,1979, police conducted a lawful search of the Gloucester County, Virginia, home of West and his wife. They discovered several of the items stolen from the Car-dova home, including various electronic equipment (two television sets and a record player); articles of clothing (an imitation mink coat with the name “Esther” embroidered in it, a silk jacket emblazoned “Korea 1970,” and a pair of shoes); decorations (several wood earvings and a mounted lobster); and miscellaneous household objects (a mirror framed with seashells, a coffee table, a bar, a sleeping bag, and some silverware). These items were valued at approximately $800, and the police recovered other, unspecified items of Cardo-va’s property with an approximate value of $300.
West was charged with grand larceny. Testifying at trial on his own behalf, he admitted to a prior felony conviction, but denied having taken anything from Cardova’s house. [281] He explained that he had bought and sold “a lot of. . . merchandise” from “several guys” at “flea bargain places” where, according to West, “a lot of times you buy things ... that are stolen” although “you néver know it.” App. 21. On cross-examination, West said that he had bought many of the stolen items from a Ronnie Elkins, whom West claimed to have known for years. West testified that he purchased one of the wood carvings, the jacket, mounted lobster, mirror, and bar from Elkins for about $500. West initially guessed, and then twice positively asserted, that this sale occurred before January 1, 1979. In addition, West claimed to have purchased the coat from Elkins for $5 around January 1, 1979. His testimony did not make clear whether he was describing one transaction or two, whether there were any other transactions between himself and Elkins, where the transactions occurred, and whether the transactions occurred at flea markets.1 West testified further that he had purchased one of [282] the television sets in an entirely separate transaction in Goochland County, from an individual whose name he had forgotten. Finally, West testified that he did not remember how he had acquired the second television, the coffee table, and the silverware.
Under then-applicable Virginia law, grand larceny was defined as the wrongful and nonconsensual taking of property worth at least $100, with the intent to deprive the owner of it permanently. See Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-95 (1975); Skeeter v. Commonwealth, 217 Va. 722, 725, 232 S. E. 2d 756, 758 (1977). Virginia law permits an inference that a person who fails to explain, or falsely explains, his exclusive possession of recently stolen property is the thief. See, e. g., Moehring v. Commonwealth, 223 Va. 564, 568, 290 S. E. 2d 891, 893 (1982); Best v. Commonwealth, 222 Va. 387, 389, 282 S. E. 2d 16, 17 (1981). The trial court instructed the jurors about this permissive inference, but warned that the inference did not compromise their constitutional obligation to acquit unless they found that the State had established every element [283] of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. See In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 (1970).2
The jury returned a guilty verdict, and West received a 10-year prison sentence. West petitioned for an appeal, contending (among other things) that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In May 1980, the Supreme Court of Virginia refused the petition — a disposition indicating that the court found the petition without merit, see Saunders v. Reynolds, 214 Va. 697, 700, 204 S. E. 2d 421, 424 (1974). Seven years later, West filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the same court, supported by an affidavit executed by Ronnie Elkins in April 1987. West renewed his claim that the original trial record contained insufficient evidence to support the conviction, and he argued in the alternative that Elkins’ affidavit, which tended to corroborate West’s trial testimony in certain respects, constituted new evidence entitling him to a new trial. The Supreme Court of Virginia again denied relief. West then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which rejected both claims and denied relief.
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed. 931 F. 2d 262 (1991). As the court correctly recognized, a [284] claim that evidence is insufficient to support a conviction as a matter of due process depends on "whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S., at 319 (emphasis in original). Five considerations led the court to conclude that this standard was not met: first, the items were recovered no sooner than two weeks after they had been stolen; second, only about a third of the items stolen from Cardova (measured by value) were recovered from West; third, the items were found in West’s house in plain view, and not hidden away as contraband; fourth, West’s explanation of his possession was not so “inherently implausible,” even if it were disbelieved, that it could “fairly be treated as positive evidence of guilt”; and fifth, there was no corroborating evidence (such as fingerprints or eyewitness testimony) beyond the fact of mere possession. See 931 F. 2d, at 268-270. The court viewed West’s testimony as “at most, a neutral factor,” id., at 270, despite noting his “confusion” about the details of his alleged purchases, id., at 269, and despite conceding that his testimony “at first blush . .. may itself seem incredible,” id., at 270, n. 7. In holding that the Jackson standard was not met, the court did not take into consideration the fact that the Supreme Court of Virginia had twice previously concluded otherwise.
After the Fourth Circuit denied rehearing en banc by an equally divided court, see App. to Pet. for Cert. 34-35, the warden and the State Attorney General sought review in this Court on, among other questions, whether the Court of Appeals had applied Jackson correctly in this case. We granted certiorari, 502 U. S. 1012 (1991), and requested additional briefing on the question whether a federal habeas court should afford deference to state-court determinations applying law to the specific facts of a case, 502 U. S. 1021 (1991). We now reverse.
[285] II
The habeas corpus statute permits a federal court to entertain a petition from a state prisoner “only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(a). The court must “dispose of the matter as law and justice require.” § 2243. For much of our history, we interpreted these bare guidelines and their predecessors to reflect the common-law principle that a prisoner seeking a writ of habeas corpus could challenge only the jurisdiction of the court that had rendered the judgment under which he was in custody. See, e.g., In re Wood, 140 U. S. 278, 285-287 (1891) (Harlan, J.); Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 193, 202 (1830) (Marshall, C. J.). Gradually, we began to expand the category of claims deemed to be jurisdictional for habeas purposes. See, e. g., Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371, 377 (1880) (court without jurisdiction to impose sentence under unconstitutional statute); Ex parte Lange, 18 Wall. 163, 176 (1874) (court without jurisdiction to impose sentence not authorized by statute). Next, we began to recognize federal claims by state prisoners if no state court had provided a full and fair opportunity to litigate those claims. See, e. g., Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S. 86, 91-92 (1923); Frank v. Mangum, 237 U. S. 309, 335-336 (1915). Before 1953, however, the inverse of this rule also remained true: Absent an alleged jurisdictional defect, “habeas corpus would not lie for a [state] prisoner ... if he had been given an adequate opportunity to obtain full and fair consideration of his federal claim in the state courts.” Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391, 459-460 (1963) (Harlan, J., dissenting). See generally Bator, Finality in Criminal Law and Federal Habeas Corpus for State Prisoners, 76 Harv. L. Rev. 441, 478-499 (1963). In other words, the state-court judgment was entitled to “absolute respect,” Kuhlmann v. Wil[286] son, 477 U. S. 436, 446 (1986) (opinion of Powell, J.) (emphasis added), and a federal habeas court could not review it even for reasonableness.3
[287] We rejected the principle of absolute deference in our landmark decision in Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443 (1953). There, we held that a state-court judgment of conviction “is not res judicata” on federal habeas with respect to federal constitutional claims, id., at 458, even if the state court has rejected all such claims after a full and fair hearing. Instead, we held, a district court must determine whether the state-court adjudication “has resulted in a satisfactory conclusion.” Id., at 463. We had no occasion to explore in detail the question whether a “satisfactory” conclusion was one that the habeas court considered correct, as opposed to merely reasonable, because we concluded that the constitutional claims advanced in Brown itself would fail even if the state courts’ rejection of them were reconsidered de novo. See id., at 465-476. Nonetheless, we indicated that the federal courts enjoy at least the discretion to take into consideration the fact that a state court has previously rejected the federal claims asserted on habeas. See id., at 465 (“As the state and federal courts have the same responsibilities to protect persons from violation of their constitutional rights, we conclude that a federal district court may decline, without a rehearing of the facts, to award a writ of habeas corpus to a state prisoner where the legality of such detention has been [288] determined, on the facts presented, by the highest state court with jurisdiction”).4
In an influential separate opinion endorsed by a majority of the Court, Justice Frankfurter also rejected the principle of absolute deference to fairly litigated state-court judgments. He emphasized that a state-court determination of federal constitutional law is not “binding” on federal habeas, id., at 506, regardless of whether the determination involves a pure question of law, ibid., or a “so-called mixed questio[n]” requiring the application of law to fact, id., at 507. Nonetheless, he stated quite explicitly that a “prior State determination may guide [the] discretion [of the district court] in deciding upon the appropriate course to be followed in disposing of the application.” Id., at 500. Discussing mixed questions specifically, he noted further that “there is no need for the federal judge, if he could, to shut his eyes to the State consideration.” Id., at 508.5
[289] In subsequent eases, we repeatedly reaffirmed Brown’s teaching that mixed constitutional questions are “open to review on collateral attack,” Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U. S. 335, 342 (1980), without ever explicitly considering whether that “review” should be de novo or deferential. In some of these eases, we would have denied habeas relief even under de novo review, see, e. g., Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 698 (1984) (facts make it “clear” that habeas petitioner did not receive ineffective assistance of counsel); Neil v. Biggers, 409 U. S. 188, 201 (1972) (facts disclose “no substantial likelihood” that habeas petitioner was subjected to unreliable pretrial lineup); in others, we would have awarded habeas relief even under deferential review, see, e. g., Brewer v. Williams, 430 U. S. 387, 405 (1977) (facts provide “no reasonable basis” for finding valid waiver of right to counsel); Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717, 725 (1961) (facts show “clear and convincing” evidence of biased jury); and in yet others, we remanded for application of a proper legal rule without addressing that standard of review question, see, e, g., Cuyler, supra, at 342, 350. Nonetheless, because these cases never qualified our early citation of Brown for the proposition that a federal habeas court must reexamine mixed constitutional questions “independently,” Townsend v. Sain, 372 U. S. 293, 318 (1963) (dictum), we have gradually come to treat as settled the rule that mixed constitutional questions are “subject to plenary federal review” on habeas, Miller v. Fenton, 474 U. S. 104, 112 (1985).6 .
[290] Jackson itself contributed to this trend. There, we held that a conviction violates due process if supported only by evidence from which “no rational trier of fact could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” 443 U. S., at 317. We stated explicitly that a state-court judgment applying the Jackson rule in a particular case “is of course entitled to deference” on federal habeas. Id., at 323; see also id., at 336, n. 9 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment) (“State judges are more familiar with the elements of state offenses than are federal judges and should be better able to evaluate sufficiency claims”). Notwithstanding these principles, however, we then indicated that the habeas court itself should apply the Jackson rule, see id., at 324, rather than merely reviewing the state courts’ application of it for reasonableness. Ultimately, though, we hád no occasion to resolve our conflicting statements on the standard of review question, because we concluded that the habeas petitioner was not entitled, to relief even under our own de novo application of Jackson. See id., at 324-326.7
[291] Despite our apparent adherence to a standard of de novo habeas review with respect to mixed constitutional questions, we have implicitly questioned that standard, at least with respect to pure legal questions, in our recent retroactivity precedents. In Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302, 313-314 (1989), a majority of this Court endorsed the retroactivity analysis advanced by Justice O’Connor for a plurality in Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989). Under Teague, a ha-beas petitioner generally cannot benefit from a new rule of criminal procedure announced after his conviction has become final on direct appeal. See id., at 305-310 (opinion of O’Connor, J.). Teague defined a “new” rule as one that was “not dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant’s conviction became final.” Id., at 301 (emphasis in origi- , nal). In Butler v. McKellar, 494 U. S. 407, 415 (1990), we explained that the definition includes all rules “susceptible to debate among reasonable minds.” Thus, if a state court has reasonably rejected the legal claim asserted by a habeas petitioner under existing law, then the claim seeks the benefit of a “new” rule under Butler, and is therefore not cognizable on habeas under Teague. In other words, a federal ha-beas court “must defer to the state court’s decision rejecting the claim unless that decision is patently unreasonable.” Butler, supra, at 422 (Brennan, J., dissenting).8
[292] Teague was premised on the view that retroactivity questions in habeas corpus proceedings must take account of the nature and function of the writ, which we describéd as “ ‘a collateral remedy... not designed as a substitute for direct review/” 489 U. S., at 306 (opinion of O’Connor, J.) (quoting Mackey v. United States, 401 U. S. 667, 682-683 (1971) (Harlan, J., concurring in judgments in part and dissenting in part)) (emphasis in Mackey). Justice Stevens reasoned similarly in Jackson, where he stressed that habeas corpus "is not intended as a substitute for appeal, nor as a device for reviewing the merits of guilt determinations at criminal trials,” but only “to guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems.” 443 U. S., at 332, n. 5 (opinion concurring in judgment); see also Greer v. Miller, 483 U. S. 756, 768-769 (1987) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment). Indeed, the notion that different standards should apply on direct and collateral review runs throughout our recent habeas jurisprudence. We have said, for example, that new rules always have retroactive application to [293] criminal cases pending on direct review, see Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U. S. 314, 320-328 (1987), but that they generally do not have retroactive application to criminal eases pending on habeas, see Teague, supra, at 305-310 (opinion of O’Con-nor, J.)- We have held that the Constitution guarantees the right to counsel on a first direct appeal, see, e. g., Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353, 355-358 (1963), but that it guarantees no right to counsel on habeas, see, e. g., Pennsylvania v. Finley, 481 U. S. 551, 555 (1987). On direct review, we have announced and enforced the rule that state courts must exclude evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. See, e. g., Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, 654-660 (1961). We have also held, however, that claims under Mapp are not cognizable on habeas as long as the state courts have provided a full and fair opportunity to litigate them at trial or on direct review. See Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465, 489-496 (1976).
These differences simply reflect the fact that habeas review “entails significant costs.” Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107, 126 (1982). Among other things, “‘[i]t disturbs the State’s significant interest in repose for concluded litigation, denies society the right to punish some admitted offenders, and intrudes on state sovereignty to a degree matched by few exercises of federal judicial authority.’ ” Duckworth v. Eagan, 492 U. S. 195, 210 (1989) (O’Connor, J., concurring) (quoting Harris v. Reed, 489 U. S. 255, 282 (1989) (Kennedy, J., dissenting)). In various contexts, we have emphasized that these costs, as well as the countervailing benefits, must be taken into consideration in defining the scope of the writ. See, e. g., Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 738-739 (1991) (procedural default); McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467, 490-493 (1991) (abuse of the writ); Teague, supra, at 308-310 (opinion of O’Connor, J.) (retroactivity); Kuhlmann v. Wilson, 477 U. S., at 444-455 (opinion of Powell, J.) (successive petitions); Stone v. Powell, supra, at 491-492, n. 31 (cogniza-bility of particular claims).
[294] In light of these principles, petitioners ask that we reconsider our statement in Miller v. Fenton that mixed constitutional questions are “subject to plenary federal review” on habeas, 474 U. S., at 112. By its terms, Teague itself is not directly controlling, because West sought federal habeas relief under Jackson, which was decided a year before his conviction became final on direct review. Nonetheless, petitioners contend, the logic of Teague makes our statement in Miller untenable. Petitioners argue that if deferential review for reasonableness strikes an appropriate balance with respect to purely legal claims, then it must strike an appropriate balance with respect to mixed questions as well. Moreover, they note that under the habeas statute itself, a state-court determination of a purely factual question must be “presumed correct,” and can be overcome only by “convincing evidence,” unless one of eight statutorily enumerated exceptions is present. 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d). It makes no sense, petitioners assert, for a habeas court generally to review factual determinations and legal determinations deferentially, but to review applications of law to fact de novo. Finally, petitioners find the prospect of deferential review for mixed questions at least implicit in our recent statement that Teague concerns are fully implicated “by the application of an old rule in a manner that was not dictated by precedent.” Stringer v. Black, 503 U. S. 222, 228 (1992) (emphasis added). For these reasons, petitioners invite us to reaffirm that a habeas judge need not — and indeed may not — “shut his eyes” entirely to state-court applications of law to fact. Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S., at 508 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.). West develops two principal counterarguments: first, that Congress implicitly codified a de novo standard with respect to mixed constitutional questions when it amended the habeas statute in 1966; and second, that [295] de novo federal review is necessary to vindicate federal constitutional rights.9
We need not decide such far-reaching issues in this case. As in both Brown and Jackson, the claim advanced by the habeas petitioner must fail even assuming that the state court's rejection of it should be reconsidered de novo. Whatever the appropriate standard of review, we conclude that there was more than enough evidence to support West’s conviction.
The ease against West was strong. Two to four weeks after the Cardova home had been burglarized, over 15 of the items stolen were recovered from West's home. On direct examination at trial, West said nothing more than that he frequently bought and sold items at different flea markets. He failed to offer specific information about how he had come ' to acquire any of the stolen items, and he did not even mention Ronnie Elkins. by name. When pressed on cross-examination about the details of his purchases, West contradicted himself repeatedly about where he supposedly had bought the stolen goods, and he gave vague, seemingly eva[296] sive answers to various other questions. See n. 1, supra. He said further that he could not remember how he had acquired such major household items as a television set and a coffee table, and -he failed to offer any explanation whatsoever about how he had acquired Cardova’s record player, among other things. Moreover, he testified that he had acquired Cardova’s second television set from a seller other than Elkins (who remained unidentified) in an entirely unrelated (but roughly contemporaneous) transaction. Finally, he failed to produce any other supporting evidence, such as testimony from Elkins, whom he claimed to have known for years and done business with on a regular basis.
As the trier of fact, the jury was entitled to disbelieve West’s uncorroborated and eonfüsed testimony. In evaluating that testimony, moreover, the jury was entitled to discount West’s credibility on account of his prior felony conviction, see Va. Code Ann. §19.2-269 (1990); Sadoski v. Commonwealth, 219 Va. 1069, 254 S. E. 2d 100 (1979), and to take into account West’s demeanor when testifying, which neither the Court of Appeals nor we may review. And if the jury did disbelieve West, it was further entitled to consider whatever it concluded to be perjured testimony as affirmative evidence of guilt, see, e. g., Wilson v. United States, 162 U. S. 613, 620-621 (1896); United States v. Zafiro, 945 F. 2d 881, 888 (CA7 1991) (Posner, J.), cert. granted on other grounds, 503 U. S. 935 (1992); Dyer v. MacDougall, 201 F. 2d 265, 269 (CA2 1952) (L. Hand, J.).
In Jackson, we emphasized repeatedly the deference owed to the trier of fact and, correspondingly, the sharply limited nature of constitutional sufficiency review. We said that “all of the evidence is to be considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution,” 443 U. S., at 319 (emphasis in original); that the prosecution need not affirmatively “rule out every hypothesis except that of guilt,” id., at 326; and that a reviewing court “faced with a record of historical facts that supports conflicting inferences must presume — even if [297] it does not affirmatively appear in the record — that the trier of fact resolved any such conflicts in favor of the prosecution, and must defer to that resolution,” ibid. Under these standards, we think it clear that the trial record contained sufficient evidence to support West’s conviction.
Having granted relief on West’s Jackson claim, the Court of Appeals declined to address West’s additional claim that he was entitled to a new trial, as a matter of due process, on the basis of newly discovered evidence. See 931 F. 2d, at 271, n. 9. As that claim is not properly before us, we decline to address it here. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.