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Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case arose from a fatal driveby shooting into a group of students standing in front of a Seattle high school. Brian Ronquillo was ultimately identified as the gunman; at the time of the shooting, he was a passenger in a car driven by respondent Cesar Sarausad II. A jury convicted Sarausad as an accomplice to second-degree murder, attempted murder, and assault; he was sentenced to just over 27 years of imprisonment. The Washington courts affirmed his conviction and sentence on direct review, and his state-court motions for postconviction relief were denied.
Respondent, then, filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The District Court granted the writ. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed with the District Court that the state-court decision was an objectively “unreasonable application of … clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1). The Court of Appeals found it unreasonable for the state court to reject Sarausad’s argument that certain jury instructions used at his trial were ambiguous and were likely misinterpreted by the jury to relieve the State of its burden of proving every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Sarausad v. Porter, 479 F. 3d 671 (2007). We disagree. Because the Washington courts reasonably applied our precedent to the facts of this case, we reverse the judgment below.
I
A
The driveby shooting was the culmination of a gang dispute between the 23d Street Diablos, of which Cesar Sarausad was a member, and the Bad Side Posse, which was headquartered at Ballard High School in Seattle, Washington. A member of the Diablos, Jerome Reyes, had been chased from Ballard by members of the Bad Side Posse, so the Diablos decided to go “to Ballard High School to show that the Diablos were not afraid” of the rival gang. App. to Pet. for Cert. 235a. The Diablos started a fight with the Bad Side Posse, but left quickly after someone indicated that police were nearby. They went to a gang member’s house, still angry because the Bad Side Posse had “called [them] weak.” Tr. 2660–2661. Brian Ronquillo retrieved a handgun, and the gang decided to return to Ballard and “get [their] respect back.” Id., at 2699.
Sarausad drove, with Ronquillo in the front passenger seat and Reyes and two other Diablos in the back seat. En route, someone in the car mentioned “ ‘capping’ ” the Bad Side Posse, and Ronquillo tied a bandana over the lower part of his face and readied the handgun. Sarausad v. State, 109 Wash. App. 824, 844, 39 P. 3d 308, 319 (2001). Shortly before reaching the high school, a second car of Diablos pulled up next to Sarausad’s car and the drivers of the two cars talked briefly. Sarausad asked the other driver, “ ‘Are you ready?’ ” id., at 844–845, 39 P. 3d, at 319, and then sped the rest of the way to the high school. Once in front of the school, Sarausad abruptly slowed to about five miles per hour while Ronquillo fired 6 to 10 shots at a group of students standing in front of it. Id., at 831, 39 P. 3d, at 312. Sarausad “saw everyone go down,” Tr. 2870, and then sped away, 109 Wash. App., at 832, 39 P. 3d, at 313. The gunfire killed one student; another student was wounded when a bullet fragment struck his leg. Id., at 831–832, 39 P. 3d, at 312–313.
B
Sarausad, Ronquillo, and Reyes were tried for the first-degree murder of Melissa Fernandes, the attempted first-degree murders of Ryan Lam and Tam Nguyen, and the second-degree assault of Brent Mason. Sarausad and Reyes, who were tried as accomplices, argued at trial that they could not have been accomplices to murder because they “had no idea whatsoever that Ronquillo had armed himself for the return trip.” Id., at 832, 39 P. 3d, at 313. They claimed that they expected, at most, another fistfight with the Bad Side Posse and were “totally and utterly dismayed when Ronquillo started shooting.” Ibid.
Sarausad’s counsel, in particular, argued that there was no evidence that Sarausad expected anything more than that the two gangs “would exchange insults, and maybe, maybe get into a fight.” Tr. 1151. Sarausad testified that he considered only the “possibility of a fight,” id., at 2799, but never the possibility of a shooting, 109 Wash. App.,at 832, 39 P. 3d, at 313. During closing arguments, Sarausad’s attorney again argued that the evidence showed only that Sarausad was “willing to fight them the way they fought them the first time. And that is by pushing and shoving and more tough talk.” App. 81. That was not sufficient, the attorney argued, to find that “Cesar [Sarausad] had knowledge that his assistance would promote or facilitate the crime of premeditated murder.” Id., at 83. Sarausad’s attorney also explained to the jury that knowledge of just any crime, such as knowledge that criminal assistance would be rendered after the shooting, would be insufficient to hold Sarausad responsible as an accomplice to murder because “[a]ccomplice liability requires that one assists with knowledge, that their actions will promote or facilitate the commission of the crime.” Id., at 100 (emphasis added).
In response, the prosecutor focused much of her closing argument on the evidence of Sarausad’s knowledge of a shooting. He had “slowed down before the shots were fired, stayed slowed down until the shots were over and immediately sped up.” Id., at 39. “There was no hesitation, there was no stopping the car. There was no attempt for Mr. Sarausad to swerve his car out of the way so that innocent people wouldn’t get shot.” Id., at 40. She also argued that Sarausad knew when he drove back to the school that his gang’s “fists didn’t work, the pushing didn’t work, the flashing of the signs, the violent altercation didn’t work” because the Bad Side Posse still “laughed at them, they called them weak, they called them nothing.” Id., at 44. So, “[w]hen they rode down to Ballard High School that last time, … [t]hey knew they were there to commit a crime, to disrespect the gang, to fight, to shoot, to get that respect back. A fist didn’t work, pushing didn’t work. Shouting insults at them didn’t work. Shooting was going to work. In for a dime, you’re in for a dollar.” Id., at 123–124.
At the close of trial, the jury received two instructions that directly quoted Washington’s accomplice-liability statute.1 Instruction number 45 provided:
“You are instructed that a person is guilty of a crime if it is committed by the conduct of another person for which he is legally accountable. A person is legally accountable for the conduct of another person when he is an accomplice of such other person in the commission of the crime.” Id., at 16 (emphasis added).
Instruction number 46 provided, in relevant part:
“A person is an accomplice in the commission of a crime if, with knowledge that it will promote or facilitate the commission of the crime, he or she either:
solicits, commands, encourages, or requests another person to commit the crime or  “(1) aids or agrees to aid another person in planning or committing the crime.”  “(2) Id., at 17 (emphasis added).
During seven days of deliberations, the jury asked five questions, three of which related to the intent requirement for accomplice liability. One questioned the accomplice-liability standard as it related to the first-degree murder instructions; one questioned the standard as it related to the second-degree murder instructions; and one stated that the jury was “having difficulty agreeing on the legal definition and concept of ‘accomplice’ ” and whether a person’s “willing participat[ion] in a group activity” makes “that person an accomplice to any crime committed by anyone in the group.” Id., at 129. In response to each question, the judge instructed the jury to reread the accomplice-liability instructions and to consider the instructions as a whole. The jury was unable to reach a verdict as to Reyes, and the judge declared a mistrial as to him. The jury then returned guilty verdicts on all counts for Ronquillo and convicted Sarausad of the lesser included crimes of second-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, and second-degree assault.
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