# Griffith v. Kentucky > Supreme Court of the United States · January 13, 1987 · 479 U.S. 314 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430767 ## Case - **Full name:** Griffith v. Kentucky - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** January 13, 1987 - **Citations:** 479 U.S. 314; 55 U.S.L.W. 4089; 107 S. Ct. 708; 93 L. Ed. 2d 649; 1987 U.S. LEXIS 283 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Dissent by Rehnquist - **Judges:** Blackmun, Brennan, Marshall, Powell, Stevens, Scalia, Rehnquist, White, O'Connor - **Cited by:** 2,889 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Questioned by People v. Hedgecock, 51 Cal. 3d 395 (1990). - Negative treatments: 3 - Distinguished by: 1 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430767 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - 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… - 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 … - 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
rule for the conduct of criminal prosecutions is to be applied
retroactively to all cases, state or federal, pending on direct
review or not yet final, with no exception for cases in which the
rule constitutes a 'clear break' with the past" - stating 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 not yet final, with no exception for cases in which the new rule constitutes a ‘clear break’ with the past.” ## Opinion text 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. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430767. Public record. Not legal advice.