finding that failure to apply a new rule of criminal procedure to cases pending on direct review when the rule is announced violates a basic norm of adjudication; the nature of judicial review precludes us from "fishing one case from the stream of appellate review, using it as a vehicle for pronouncing new [procedural] standards, and then permitting a stream of similar cases subsequently to flow by unaffected by that new rule"
How later courts described this case
- finding that failure to apply a new rule of criminal procedure to cases pending on direct review when the rule is announced violates a basic norm of adjudication; the nature of judicial review precludes us from "fishing one case from the stream of appellate review, using it as a vehicle for pronouncing new [procedural] standards, and then permitting a stream of similar cases subsequently to flow by unaffected by that new rule"
- holding that failure to apply newly declared constitutional rule for the “conduct of criminal prosecution is to be applied retroactively to all cases, state or federal, pending on direct review or not yet final, with no exception for eases in which the new rules constitutes a ‘clear break’ with the past”
- explaining that "a new rule for the conduct of criminal prosecutions is to be applied retroactively to all cases, state or federal, pending on direct review or A-0161-23 20 not yet final, with no exception for cases in which the new rule constitutes a 'clear break' with the past"
- holding that "a new <br>rule for the conduct of criminal prosecutions is to be applied <br>retroactively to all cases, state or federal, pending on direct <br>review or not yet final, with no exception for cases in which the <br>rule constitutes a 'clear break' with the past"
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Questioned by People v. Hedgecock, 51 Cal. 3d 395 (1990)
We note, however, that the continuing validity of Guerra’s test of retroactivity with respect to rulings based on the federal Constitution has been called into question by the high court’s decision in Griffith v. Kentucky (1987) 479 U.S. 314 [93 L.Ed.2d 649, 107 S.Ct. 708], which holds that “a new rule for the conduct of criminal prosecutions is to be applied retroactively to all cases, state or federal, pending on d…
Declined to follow by Wilkerson v. Whitley, 28 F.3d 498 (1994)
We decline to follow the other circuits that implicitly, and perhaps inadvertently, have applied Griffith retroactively.
Disagreed with by Commonwealth v. Waters, 400 Mass. 1006 (1987)
We have considered memoranda of the parties as to the effect of Griffith, and we disagree with the defendant’s argument.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Kleinbart v. United States, 1989 D.C. App. LEXIS 22 (1989)
The government has argued in the instant case that Griffith, addressing the retroactivity of constitutional rules, is inapplicable to the rule announced in our Robinson case.
The opinion
Chief Justice Rehnquist,
dissenting.
As I stated in my dissenting opinion in Shea v. Louisiana, 470 U. S. 51, 61 (1985), I am willing to adopt both aspects of the approach to retroactivity propounded by Justice Harlan in his opinion in Mackey v. United States, 401 U. S. 667, 675 (1971). In Justice Harlan’s view, new constitutional rules governing criminal prosecutions should apply retroactively for cases pending on direct appeal when the rule is announced, and, with narrow exceptions, should not apply in collateral proceedings challenging convictions that become final before the rule is announced. The majority today adopts only a portion of this approach. I therefore join Justice White’s dissent, agreeing with him that, under the present state of our retroactivity jurisprudence, the majority erred in rejecting the reasons cited in Allen v. Hardy, 478 U. S. 255 (1986), for making Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986), nonretroactive.