Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1989

Teague v. Lane

489 U.S. 288 | 109 S. Ct. 1060 | 103 L. Ed. 2d 334 | 1989 U.S. LEXIS 1043

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Takeaway

In short, Teague established the modern baseline rule that new criminal-procedure rules generally do not apply retroactively on federal habeas review of final convictions, except for substantive rules and rare watershed procedural rules.

Background

Teague, a Black defendant, was convicted by an all-white Illinois jury of attempted murder, armed robbery, and aggravated battery. During jury selection, the prosecutor used all 10 regular peremptory strikes against Black prospective jurors. Defense counsel moved twice for a mistrial, arguing that Teague was entitled to a jury representative of the community. The trial judge denied the motions.

On direct appeal, Teague argued that the prosecutor's strikes violated the Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section principle. The Illinois courts rejected that claim, and Teague's conviction became final in 1983. In federal habeas proceedings, he renewed the fair-cross-section claim, raised an Equal Protection claim under Swain v. Alabama, and later sought the benefit of Batson v. Kentucky. A Seventh Circuit panel initially ruled for Teague on the Sixth Amendment issue, but the en banc court rejected his claims. The Supreme Court affirmed.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether Batson v. Kentucky applied retroactively on federal collateral review to Teague's conviction, which became final before Batson was decided.

Holding

No. Batson did not apply because Teague's conviction was final before Batson, and opinions accompanying the denial of certiorari in McCray v. New York did not undermine Swain v. Alabama's precedential force.

Reasoning

Batson changed the proof required for an Equal Protection challenge to racially discriminatory peremptory strikes. Under Swain, a defendant generally had to prove systematic discrimination across cases; under Batson, discriminatory use of strikes in the defendant's own case could establish a prima facie violation. In Allen v. Hardy, the Court had already held that Batson was not retroactive on collateral review for convictions final before Batson.

Teague argued that separate opinions filed when the Court denied certiorari in McCray effectively signaled that Swain was no longer controlling. The Court rejected that premise. A denial of certiorari expresses no view on the merits, and opinions accompanying a denial have no precedential effect comparable to a merits decision. Allen therefore controlled and barred Teague from obtaining Batson's benefit.

Issue #2

Whether Teague could pursue his Equal Protection claim under Swain v. Alabama in federal habeas proceedings.

Holding

No. The claim was procedurally defaulted because Teague did not present it to the Illinois courts and did not show cause and prejudice for that default.

Reasoning

Teague's state-court arguments invoked the Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section principle, not Swain's Equal Protection rule. Illinois law treated claims that could have been raised on direct appeal but were not as waived, and the Court concluded that Illinois collateral relief would therefore be unavailable for this claim.

Under Wainwright v. Sykes, a federal habeas petitioner who has defaulted a claim in state court must establish cause for the default and actual prejudice. Teague did not attempt to show cause. The Illinois Appellate Court's discussion of his Sixth Amendment claim did not preserve or adjudicate the distinct Swain theory.

Harris v. Reed did not change the result. Harris requires a clear state procedural ruling only when a state court had an opportunity to address the federal claim later pressed in habeas. Here, Teague never presented the Swain claim to the state courts at all.

Issue #3

What retroactivity rule governs a new constitutional rule of criminal procedure sought by a prisoner on federal collateral review.

Holding

As to Parts IV and V, a plurality adopted Justice Harlan's general rule: new constitutional rules of criminal procedure do not apply to convictions already final when the rules are announced, subject to two narrow exceptions.

Reasoning

The plurality distinguished direct review from collateral review. Under Griffith v. Kentucky, a new rule applies to all cases still pending on direct review because similarly situated defendants should receive equal treatment. Collateral review serves a different function: it is not a substitute for direct appeal and must account for finality, comity, and the States' reliance on constitutional law as it existed when convictions became final.

The plurality abandoned the prior Linkletter balancing approach, which weighed a rule's purpose, governmental reliance, and administrative consequences. That approach had produced inconsistent results and unequal treatment among similarly situated prisoners, especially when courts decided the merits of a new rule before deciding its retroactivity.

The first exception covers rules that place certain primary private conduct beyond the government's power to criminalize. The second covers watershed procedural rules that are necessary to fundamental fairness and without which the likelihood of an accurate conviction is seriously diminished. The plurality described such rules as bedrock elements of criminal procedure and suggested that Gideon's right to counsel at trial was the paradigm example.

Issue #4

Whether the Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section requirement should be extended from the jury venire to the petit jury in Teague's collateral case.

Holding

The plurality did not decide the substantive Sixth Amendment question. It held that the proposed extension would be a new rule that did not fit either retroactivity exception and therefore could not be created in Teague's habeas case.

Reasoning

Taylor v. Louisiana had required jury venires to be drawn from a fair cross section of the community, while expressly stating that defendants are not entitled to a petit jury of any particular composition. Given that language and prior precedent rejecting a proportional-representation requirement for the jury itself, the plurality concluded that extending the fair-cross-section requirement to petit juries would announce a new rule.

The proposed rule would neither decriminalize conduct nor qualify as a watershed rule of procedure. The plurality reasoned that even the venire fair-cross-section rule did not rest on the premise that every trial conducted without such a venire was fundamentally unfair or inaccurate. An analogous rule for the petit jury therefore was not an absolute prerequisite to a fair and reliable conviction.

The plurality treated retroactivity as a threshold inquiry in habeas cases. If a new rule would not apply retroactively to the petitioner and other similarly situated prisoners, the habeas court should not announce it merely to benefit the individual case before it. That approach, the plurality concluded, avoids both advisory constitutional rulings and unequal treatment among final convictions.

Concurrences

Justice White

Reasoning

Justice White joined the Court's resolution of the Batson and procedural-default issues and concurred in the judgment. He noted that he had preferred the former Stovall retroactivity balancing test, including in cases on direct review, but accepted the plurality's collateral-review framework as a logical consequence of the Court's intervening direct-review decisions.

He also stressed that Congress could revise the habeas statutes if the Court had construed their reach incorrectly. In his view, however, the Court's direct-review retroactivity decisions rested in part on constitutional principles, leaving any correction of those decisions primarily to the Court itself.

Justice Stevens

Reasoning

Justice Stevens, joined by Justice Blackmun as to Part I, believed Teague had alleged a valid Sixth Amendment violation. In his view, a prosecutor's use of peremptory strikes to remove all Black veniremembers, without a nonracial basis apparent in the record, was incompatible with the Sixth Amendment guarantee of an impartial jury selected through fair procedures.

He agreed generally with Justice Harlan's distinction between direct and collateral review, but rejected the plurality's decision to make retroactivity a threshold barrier to deciding the constitutional merits. A court ordinarily should first decide whether there was constitutional error and then determine whether the error warrants collateral relief, including through retroactivity and harmless-error principles.

Justice Stevens also rejected the plurality's revision of Harlan's fundamental-fairness exception. He maintained that the exception should protect procedures implicit in ordered liberty, not only procedures that substantially improve factual accuracy. But Allen v. Hardy's holding that Batson was not retroactive controlled in practical effect: if a final conviction need not be reopened for racially discriminatory peremptory challenges under the Equal Protection Clause, Teague could not obtain collateral relief for the closely related Sixth Amendment claim.

On the Swain issue, Justice Stevens disagreed with the Court's procedural-default ruling. He thought the Illinois courts should first decide whether their fundamental-fairness exception permitted Teague's unraised Swain claim. Nevertheless, because the Sixth Amendment claim could not yield relief and Batson was unavailable, he concurred in the judgment affirming the denial of habeas relief.

Dissents

Justice Brennan

Reasoning

Justice Brennan, joined by Justice Marshall, objected to the plurality's adoption of a new and restrictive limit on federal habeas review without full briefing or argument. Federal habeas statutes broadly authorize relief for custody that violates the Constitution, and longstanding precedent had permitted federal courts to decide exhausted constitutional claims absent a recognized procedural bar.

The plurality's rule, he argued, improperly prevents habeas courts from considering any claim that would require a new rule unless it decriminalizes conduct or dramatically improves the accuracy of guilt determinations. That limitation would exclude many important constitutional claims involving counsel, self-incrimination, double jeopardy, and due process, even though such rights protect values independent of factual innocence.

Justice Brennan rejected the plurality's belief that equal treatment among habeas petitioners justified refusing to decide novel constitutional questions in collateral cases. Although a successful petitioner might sometimes be the sole beneficiary of a nonretroactive new rule, that inequality is an unavoidable and acceptable consequence of deciding real cases rather than issuing advisory opinions. Moreover, a collateral case may present the issue most clearly or may be the only vehicle through which the issue reaches the Court.

On the merits, he characterized Teague's claim more narrowly than the plurality did. Teague did not demand that every petit jury mirror the community; he challenged the prosecutor's allegedly discriminatory procedure for selecting the jury. Because racial discrimination in jury selection threatens both the reality and appearance of impartial justice, Justice Brennan concluded that Teague's Sixth Amendment claim was closely connected to fundamental fairness and should have been considered and sustained.