Miscellaneous

Retro

By Anne Skove, Esq.

If you had asked us about retro floors before today, we might have answered parquet or light-up disco.

But now we know better, thanks to Danforth v. Minnesota (06-8273), in which the SCOTUS ruled that as far as retroactivity in the states are concerned, Teague is a floor, not a ceiling. Thus, states may apply U.S. Supreme Court criminal law decisions retroactively if they so choose.

Before, we all salivated over possible Teague exceptions: whether the decision effectively constituted a new rule. (But despite our attention, the "watershed" rarely happened; see, e.g., Whorton v. Bockting and the Watershed Exception of Teague v. Lane, Tadhg Dooley, Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy, 2007.) Now, we need not drool, but rather will just have to sit tight and wait for individual states to consider retroactivity. Maybe we can get some knitting donw in the process.

See States Allowed to Expand Criminal Rights, Lyle Denniston, SCOTUSblog (February 20, 2008).

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on February 20, 2008 (boomark / email).