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A must-read for those doing habeas work or just deep fed courts thinking

By Douglas A. Berman

A new forthcoming article now appearing here via SSRN is a must-read for any and everyone working on, even even thinking about, habeas proceedings. This new piece is titled "The Future of Teague Retroactivity, or ?Redressability,? after Danforth v. Minnesota: Why Lower Courts Should Give Retroactive Effect to New Constitutional Rules of Criminal Procedure in Postconviction Proceedings," and here is the abstract: Although the Supreme Court's 1989 decision in Teague v. Lane generally prohibits the application of new constitutional rules of criminal procedure in federal habeas review of state-court judgments, the Court's 2008 decision in Danforth v. Minnesota frees state courts from Teague's strictures.  Danforth explicitly permits state courts to fashion their own rules governing the retroactive application of new federal constitutional rules in postconviction proceedings, and leaves open the question whether lower federal courts are bound by Teague in postconviction review of federal criminal convictions...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on December 19, 2008 (boomark / email).