Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1987

Griffith v. Kentucky

479 U.S. 314 | 107 S. Ct. 708 | 93 L. Ed. 2d 649 | 1987 U.S. LEXIS 283 | 55 U.S.L.W. 4089

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Takeaway

In short, Griffith established that every new constitutional rule of criminal procedure applies to all cases still pending on direct review, even when the rule sharply breaks with prior precedent.

Background

Randall Lamont Griffith, a Black defendant, was tried in Kentucky for robbery and related offenses. The prosecutor used four of five peremptory strikes against Black prospective jurors, and the final jury was all white. Griffith objected and asked the prosecutor to explain the strikes, but the trial court refused. The Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed, applying Swain v. Alabama, which at the time required proof that a prosecutor had systematically excluded Black jurors across multiple cases.

Willie Davis Brown, a Black federal defendant, was convicted of narcotics offenses in Oklahoma. The prosecutor used peremptory challenges to remove the two remaining Black prospective jurors. There was also testimony that the prosecutor told the jury clerk he wanted as few Black jurors as possible, although the clerk did not alter the venire. The Tenth Circuit affirmed under Swain, holding that Brown had not shown a systematic exclusionary practice in case after case.

While both cases were pending on direct review, the Supreme Court decided Batson v. Kentucky. Batson rejected the relevant part of Swain and held that a defendant may establish a prima facie equal-protection claim from the prosecutor's strikes at that defendant's own trial. The Court granted review to decide whether Batson applied to convictions still pending on direct review when Batson was announced.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether Batson v. Kentucky applies to state and federal criminal cases that were pending on direct review or not yet final when Batson was decided.

Holding

Yes. A new constitutional rule governing criminal prosecutions applies to every state or federal case pending on direct review or not yet final when the rule is announced.

Reasoning

The Court distinguished convictions on direct review from convictions already final. In United States v. Johnson, the Court had moved away from the older Linkletter-Stovall practice of deciding retroactivity case by case for both categories. A case is final only when judgment has been rendered, appellate review has been exhausted, and the time to seek certiorari has expired or a certiorari petition has been denied.

Applying current constitutional law to pending cases follows from the judicial role. The Court announces constitutional rules while resolving actual cases and controversies; it does not legislate rules prospectively for the future. Once the Court identifies the governing constitutional principle in one case, the integrity of adjudication requires lower courts to apply that principle to comparable cases still in the direct-review pipeline.

The rule also prevents arbitrary unequal treatment among similarly situated defendants. Batson and Griffith, for example, were tried in the same Kentucky court only months apart and involved the same prosecutor. It would be unfair for Batson alone to receive the benefit of the constitutional rule merely because his case happened to reach the Supreme Court first.

Issue #2

Whether a new rule may be denied to cases on direct review because it constitutes a "clear break" with prior precedent.

Holding

No. The Court eliminated the clear-break exception for criminal cases pending on direct review.

Reasoning

Batson was an explicit and substantial break with Swain because it overruled Swain's requirement of proof of discrimination across a series of cases. Under prior retroactivity doctrine, that characterization could have triggered an exception based on law-enforcement reliance on the old rule and the administrative burden of applying the new one.

The Court held that reliance and administrative-burden concerns may bear on whether a new rule reaches convictions already final, but they cannot justify withholding the rule from cases still undergoing direct review. A clear-break exception would revive the case-specific balancing approach that the Court had rejected for nonfinal convictions.

Because the clear-break label does not lessen the inequity of treating comparable pending defendants differently, it provides no sound basis for an exception. Batson therefore applies to Griffith's and Brown's pending cases, and the Court reversed and remanded both judgments for further proceedings consistent with Batson. The Court did not disturb Allen v. Hardy's conclusion that Batson does not apply retroactively on federal habeas review to convictions final before Batson.

Concurrences

Justice Powell

Reasoning

Justice Powell joined the Court's opinion and viewed it as an important step away from the confusion caused by Linkletter's case-by-case retroactivity analysis. He had long endorsed Justice Harlan's view that new constitutional rules should govern cases still on direct appeal.

Powell emphasized that the Court decided only the treatment of cases on direct review. In his view, the Court should eventually adopt Justice Harlan's broader approach to habeas cases as well: collateral challenges ordinarily should be governed by the constitutional standards in force when the conviction became final, subject to narrow exceptions. The majority, however, deliberately left that question open.

Dissents

Chief Justice Rehnquist

Reasoning

Chief Justice Rehnquist stated that he accepted both parts of Justice Harlan's retroactivity framework: new constitutional rules should apply to cases pending on direct appeal, while generally not applying in collateral proceedings attacking final convictions. Because the Court adopted only the direct-review portion of that approach, however, he joined Justice White's dissent on the ground that existing retroactivity precedent did not justify rejecting the reasons given in Allen v. Hardy for treating Batson as nonretroactive.

Justice White

Reasoning

Justice White argued that the Court should retain the traditional Stovall balancing test for retroactivity in both direct and collateral cases. That test considers the purpose of the new rule, official reliance on the old rule, and the effect of retroactive application on the administration of justice. In his view, the Court gave no adequate reason to create a distinct rule for cases on direct review.

White rejected the majority's claim that universal application to pending direct appeals was required by judicial legitimacy or fairness. Applying a new rule retroactively does not cure any concern that the Court has acted like a legislature in announcing the rule. And the majority still accepts unequal treatment between defendants on direct review and those pursuing collateral relief, even though both may be affected by the same unconstitutional conduct.

Even if cases on direct appeal deserve different treatment from final convictions, White would have retained the clear-break exception. Batson expressly overruled part of Swain, and prosecutors, trial judges, and appellate courts had justifiably relied on Swain's standard. The reliance interests and disruption to the criminal justice system that led Allen to deny Batson collateral retroactivity, White concluded, also supported denying it to pending direct-review cases.