Opinion

United States v. Johnson

  • 457 U.S. 537
  • 50 U.S.L.W. 4742
  • 102 S. Ct. 2579
  • 73 L. Ed. 2d 202
  • 1982 U.S. LEXIS 134
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Filed
Jun 21, 1982
Status
Published
Author
Brennan
On the bench
Blackmun, Brennan, Marshall, Powell, Stevens, White, Burger, Rehnquist, O'Connor
Cited by
829 cases
Authority
More cited than 24.2%

Reported abrogated in part by Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314 (1987) — not on the Supreme Court's list

stating it “express[ed] no view on the retroactive application of decisions construing any constitutional provision other than the Fourth Amendment[,]” and that it was not “address[ing] the retroactive reach of our Fourth Amendment to those cases that still may raise Fourth Amendment issues on collateral attack”

How later courts described this case

  • stating it “express[ed] no view on the retroactive application of decisions construing any constitutional provision other than the Fourth Amendment[,]” and that it was not “address[ing] the retroactive reach of our Fourth Amendment to those cases that still may raise Fourth Amendment issues on collateral attack”
  • recognizing that full retroactivity is a necessary adjunct to the ruling that a trial court lacked authority to convict or punish a criminal defendant in the first place based on the notion that the prior inconsistent judgments or sentences were void ab initio.
  • concluding that there is no real question as to whether a decision applies retroactively when it merely applies settled precedent to different factual situations because in such a case it would be a foregone conclusion that the rule of the earlier case applies
  • holding that because defendant “only emerged under circumstances of extreme coercion, the arrest occurred while he was still inside his trailer.”

Written by the judges who cited it.

Later courts went against this

  • Reported abrogated in part by Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314 (1987) — not on the Supreme Court's list

    9 U.S. 314, 107 S. Ct. 708 (1987); Desist v. U.S., 394 U.S. 244, 244-46, 89 S. Ct. 1030, 1031 (1969) (defendants moved to suppress wire-tapping evidence as a violation of their Fourth Amendment rights); Mackey v. U.S., 401 U.S. 667, 669, 91 S. Ct. 1160, 1162 (1971) (defense counsel objected to the introduction of specific exhibits, “arguing that they were prejudicial, inflammatory, and irrelevant’); U.S. v. Johnson,…
    Supreme Court of the United StatesJan 13, 19873 citing opinionsin partunconfirmed confidenceRead it

Distinguished

  • Distinguished by Charles E. Rose v. Ted Engle, Superintendent, 722 F.2d 1277 (1984)

    Rose’s argument in response is that Johnson is inapplicable to Edwards because Johnson, by its very terms, is limited to decisions construing the Fourth Amendment.
    Court of Appeals for the Sixth CircuitJan 26, 1984Read it

The opinion

Justice Brennan,

concurring.

I join the Court’s opinion on my understanding that the decision leaves undisturbed our retroactivity precedents as ap *564 plied to convictions final at the time of decision. See, e. g., Stovall v. Denno, 388 U. S. 293 (1967).

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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