1 (Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2012

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

## SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

METRISH, WARDEN v . LANCASTER

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

No. 12–547. Argued April 24, 2013—Decided May 20, 2013
On April 23, 1993, respondent Burt Lancaster, a former police officer

with a long history of severe mental-health problems, shot and killed his girlfriend. At his 1994 jury trial in Michigan state court, Lancas

ter asserted a defense of diminish ed capacity. Under then-prevailing Michigan Court of Appeals preced ent, the diminished-capacity de

fense permitted a legally sane defe ndant to present evidence of men

tal illness to negate the specific intent required to commit a particu

lar crime. Apparently unpersuaded by Lancaster’s defense, the jury convicted him of first-degree murder and a related firearm offense. Lancaster, however, later obtained federal habeas relief from these convictions.

By the time of Lancaster’s retrial, the Michigan Supreme Court had rejected the diminished-capacity defense in its 2001 decision in Carpenter . Although the murder with which Lancaster was charged occurred several years before Carpenter was decided, the judge at his second trial applied Carpenter and therefore disallowed renewal of his diminished-capacity defense. Lancaster was again convicted. Af

firming, the Michigan Court of Appeals rejected Lancaster’s argu

ment that the trial court’s retroactive application of Carpenter violated due process.

Lancaster reasserted his due process claim in a federal habeas pe

tition. The District Court denied the petition, but the Sixth Circuit reversed. Concluding that the Michigan Supreme Court’s 2001 rejec

tion of the diminished-capacity defense was unforeseeable in April 1993, when Lancaster killed his girlfriend, the Sixth Circuit held that, by rejecting Lancaster’s due process claim, the Michigan Court of Appeals had unreasonably applied clearly established federal law.
Held : Lancaster is not entitled to federal habeas relief. Pp. 4–15.2 METRISH v. LANCASTER

Syllabus

(a) Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), Lancaster may obtain federal habeas relief only if the Michigan Court of Appeals, in rejecting his due process claim, unrea

sonably applied “clearly established Federal law, as determined by [this] Court.” 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1 ). This standard is “difficult to meet”: Lancaster must show that th e Michigan Court of Appeals’ de

cision rested on “an error well understood and comprehended in ex

isting law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” Har

rington v. Richter , 562 U. S. ___, ___. To determine whether Lancaster has satisfied that demanding standard, the Court first considers two key decisions: Bouie v. City of Columbia , 378 U. S. 347, and Rogers v. Tennessee , 532 U. S. 451. It then considers whether the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision qualifies as an unreasonable application of those decisions to Lancaster’s case. Pp. 4–5.

(b) Bouie concerned African-American petitioners who had refused to leave a South Carolina drug store’s whites-only restaurant area af

ter entering without notice that th e store’s policy barred their entry. They were convicted under a South Carolina trespass statute pro

hibiting “ ‘entry upon the lands of another . . . after notice from the owner or tenant prohibiting such entry.’ ” 378 U. S., at 349–350. The South Carolina Supreme Court based its affirmance of the petition

ers’ convictions on it s prior decision in Mitchell, where the court held that the trespass statute reached both unauthorized entries and “the act of remaining on the premises of another after receiving notice to leave.” 378 U. S., at 350. Mitchell , however, was rendered 21 months after the petitioners’ arrest. This Court held that the Due Process Clause prohibited Mitchell ’s retroactive application to the Bouie peti

tioners, stressing that Mitchell ’s interpretation of the state trespass statute was “clearly at variance with the statutory language” and “ha[d] not the slightest support in prior South Carolina decisions.” 378 U. S., at 356.

In Rogers , the petitioner contested the Tennessee Supreme Court’s retroactive abolition of the common-law “year and a day rule,” which barred a murder conviction “unless [the] victim had died by the de

fendant’s act within a year and a day of the act.” 532 U. S., at 453. This Court found no due process violat ion. “[J]udicial alteration of a common law doctrine of criminal law,” the Court held, “violates the principle of fair warning, and henc e must not be given retroactive ef

fect, only where [the alteration] is ‘unexpected and indefensible by reference to the law which had been expressed prior to the conduct in issue.’ ” Id. , at 462. Judged by this standard, the retroactive aboli

tion of the year and a day rule encountered no constitutional imped

iment. The rule was “widely viewed as an outdated relic of the com

mon law,” had been routinely rejected by modern courts and3 Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013)

Syllabus

legislators, and had been mentioned in reported Tennessee decisions “only three times, and each time in dicta.” Id. , at 462–464. Pp. 6–8.

(c) The Michigan Court of Appeals’ rejection of Lancaster’s due pro

cess claim does not represent an unr easonable application of the law this Court declared in Bouie and Rogers. Pp. 8–15. (1) The Michigan Court of Appeals first recognized the dimin

ished-capacity defense in 1973. Two years later, the Michigan Legis

lature prescribed comprehensive requirements for defenses based on mental illness or retardation. In 1978, the Michigan Court of Ap

peals ruled that the diminished-capacity defense fit within the codi

fied definition of insanity. The Michigan Supreme Court’s 2001 deci

sion in Carpenter , however, rejected that position, holding that the diminished-capacity defense was not encompassed within the Michi

gan Legislature’s comprehensive scheme for mental-illness defenses and thus could not be invoked by criminal defendants. Pp. 8–12. (2) In light of this Court’s prec edent and the histor y of Michigan’s diminished-capacity defense, the Mich igan Court of Appeals’ decision applying Carpenter retroactively is not “an unreasonable application of . . . clearly establishe d [f]ederal law.” 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1). This case is a far cry from Bouie , where the South Carolina Supreme Court unexpectedly expanded “narrow and precise statutory lan

guage” that, as written, did not reach the petitioners’ conduct. 378 U. S., at 352. In Carpenter , by contrast, the Michigan Supreme Court rejected a diminished-capacity de fense that the court reasonably found to have no home in a compre hensive, on-point statute enacted by the Michigan Legislature. Alth ough Lancaster’s due process claim is arguably less weak than the due process claim rejected in Rogers

, the Court did not hold in Rogers that a newly announced judicial rule may be applied retroactively only if the rule it replaces was an “out

dated relic” rarely appearing in a jurisdiction’s case law. 532 U. S., at 462–467. Distinguishing Rogers thus does little to bolster Lancas

ter’s argument that the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision unrea

sonably applied clearly established federal law. This Court has never found a due process violation in circumstances remotely resembling Lancaster’s case— i.e. , where a state supreme court, squarely ad

dressing a particular issue for the first time, rejected a consistent line of lower court decisions based on the supreme court’ s reasonable in

terpretation of the language of a controlling statute. Fairminded ju

rists could conclude that a state su preme court decision of that order is not “ ‘unexpected and indefensible by reference to [existing] law.’ ” Id. , at 462. Pp. 12–15. 683 F. 3d 740, reversed.

G INSBURG , J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court._________________

_________________ 1 Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash

ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

## SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 12–547

LINDA METRISH, WARDEN, PETITIONER v. BURT LANCASTER

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
[May 20, 2013]

J USTICE G INSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. Burt Lancaster was convicted in Michigan state court of first-degree murder and a related firearm offense. At the time the crime was committed, Michigan’s intermediate appellate court had repeatedly recognized “diminished capacity” as a defense negating the mens rea element of first-degree murder. By the time of Lancaster’s trial and conviction, however, the Michigan Supreme Court in People v. Carpenter , 464 Mich. 223, 627 N. W. 2d 276 (2001), had rejected the defense. Lancaster asserts that retroactive application of the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision in Carpenter denied him due process of law. On habeas review, a federal court must assess a claim for relief under the demanding standard set by the Antiter

rorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). Under that standard, Lancaster may gain relief only if the state-court decision he assa ils “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable applicat ion of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by [this] Court.” 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1). We hold that L ancaster’s petition does not meet AEDPA’s requirement and that the United States2 METRISH v. LANCASTER

Opinion of the Court
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit erred in granting him federal habeas relief.

I On April 23, 1993, Lancaster, a former police officer with a long history of severe mental-health problems, shot and killed his girlfriend in a shopping-plaza parking lot. At his 1994 jury trial in Michigan state court, Lancaster admitted that he had killed his girlfriend but asserted insanity and diminished-capacity defenses. Under then

prevailing Michigan Court of Appeals precedent, a defend

ant who pleaded diminished capacity, although he was legally sane, could “offer evidence of some mental abnor

mality to negate the specific intent required to commit a particular crime.” Carpenter , 464 Mich., at 232, 627 N. W. 2d, at 280. If a defendant succeeded in showing that mental illness prevented him from “form[ing] the specific state of mind required as an essential element of a crime,” he could “be convicted only of a lower grade of the offense not requiring that particular mental element.” Ibid. (in

ternal quotation marks omitted). Apparently unpersuaded by Lancaster’s defenses, the jury convicted him of first-degree murder, in violation of Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. §750.316 (West 1991), 1 and pos

sessing a firearm in the commission of a felony, in vio

lation of §750.227b (West Cum. Supp. 2004). Lancaster later obtained federal habeas relief from these convictions, however, because, in conflict with Batson v. Kentucky , 476 U. S. 79 (1986), the prosecutor had exercised a race-based peremptory challenge to remo ve a potential juror. See Lancaster v. Adams , 324 F. 3d 423 (CA6 2003). Lancaster was retried in 2005. By that time, the Michigan Supreme Court had disapproved the “series of [Michigan

——————

1 As relevant here, a homicide constitutes first-degree murder under Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. §750.316 if it is “wil[l]ful, deliberate, and premeditated.”3 Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court
Court of Appeals] decisions” recognizing the diminished

capacity defense. Carpenter , 464 Mich., at 235, 627 N. W. 2d, at 282. In rejecting the defense, Michigan’s high court observed that, in 1975, the Michigan Legislature had enacted “a comprehensive stat utory scheme concerning defenses based on either mental illness or mental retarda

tion.” Id. , at 236, 627 N. W. 2d, at 282. That scheme, the Michigan Supreme Court concluded, “demonstrate[d] the Legislature’s intent to preclude the use of any evidence of a defendant’s lack of mental capacity short of legal insan

ity to avoid or reduce cr iminal responsibility.” Ibid. Although the murder with which Lancaster was charged occurred several years before the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision in Carpenter , the judge presiding at Lan

caster’s second trial applied Carpenter ’s holding and there

fore disallowed renewal of L ancaster’s diminished-capacity defense. Following a bench trial, Lancaster was again convicted. The trial court im posed a sentence of life im

prisonment for the first-degree murder conviction and a consecutive two-year sentence for the related firearm offense. Lancaster appealed, unsuccessfully, to the Michigan Court of Appeals. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 76a–78a. Theappeals court rejected Lancaster’s argument that retroactive application of Carpenter to his case violated his right to due process. “[D]ue process concerns prevent retroac

tive application [of judicial de cisions] in some cases,” the court acknowledged, “especially . . . where the decision is unforeseeable and has the effect of changing existing law.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 77a. But Carpenter “did not involve a change in the law,” the Court of Appeals reasoned, “be

cause it concerned an unambiguous statute that was interpreted by the [Michigan] Supreme Court for the first time.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 77a. After the Michigan Supreme Court declined review, Lancaster reasserted his due process claim in a federal4 METRISH v. LANCASTER

Opinion of the Court
habeas petition filed under 28 U. S. C. §2254. The District Court denied the petition, 735 F. Supp. 2d 750 (ED Mich. 2010), but it granted a certificate of appealability, see 28 U. S. C. §2253(c). A divided panel of the Sixth Circuit reversed. 683 F. 3d 740 (2012). The Michigan Supreme Court’s decision in Carpenter was unforeseeable, the Court of Appeals majority concluded, given (1) the Michigan Court of Appeals’ consistent recognition of the diminished-capacity defense; (2) the Michigan Supreme Court’s repeated references to the defense without casting a shadow of doubt on it; and (3) the inclusion of the diminished-capacity defense in the Michigan State Bar’s pattern jury instructions. 683 F. 3d, at 745–749. These considerations persuaded the Sixth Circuit majority that, in rejecting Lancaster’s due process claim, the Michigan Court of Appeals had unreasonably applied clearly established federal law. Id. , at 752–753. Accordingly, the Sixth Circuit ruled that Lancaster was en

titled to a new trial at which he could present his diminished

capacity defense. Id. , at 754. Dissenting, Chief Judge Batchelder concluded that the “Michigan Court of Ap

peals[’] denial of Lancaster’s due process claim was rea

sonable . . . because the diminished-capacity defense was not well-established in Michigan and its elimination was, therefore, foreseeable.” Id. , at 755. This Court granted certiorari. 568 U. S. ___ (2013).

II
To obtain federal habeas relief under AEDPA’s stric

tures, Lancaster must establish that, in rejecting his dueprocess claim, the Michigan Court of Appeals unreasonably applied federal law clearly es tablished in our decisions. See 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1). 2 This standard, we have

——————

2 Title 28 U. S. C. §2254(d) provides that where, as here, a state pris

oner’s habeas claim “was adjudicate d on the merits in State court,” a federal court may not grant relief with respect to that claim unless the5 Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court
explained, is “difficult to meet”: To obtain habeas corpus relief from a federal court, a state prisoner must show that the challenged state-court ruling rested on “an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” Harrington v. Richter , 562 U. S. ___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at 12–13). To determine whether Lancaster has satisfied that demand

ing standard, we consider first two of this Court’s key decisions: Bouie v. City of Columbia , 378 U. S. 347 (1964), and Rogers v. Tennessee , 532 U. S. 451 (2001). We then consider whether the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision qualifies as an unreasonable application of those decisions to the particular circumstances of Lancaster’s case. 3

—————— state court’s adjudication of the clai m (1) “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determin ed by the Supreme Court of the United States,” or (2) “resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the fa cts in light of the evidence pre

sented in the State court proceeding. ” Lancaster does not allege that the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision “was based on an unreasonabledetermination of the facts” in his case, nor does he develop any argument that the state court’s decision was “contrary to” this Court’s precedents. See Williams v. Taylor , 529 U. S. 362, 412–413 (2000) (a state-court decision is “contrary to” clearly established federal law if “the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by this Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than this Court has on a set of materi ally indistinguishable facts”). The only question in this ca se, therefore, is whether the Michigan Court of Appeals unreasonably applied “clearly established [f]ederal law, as determined by [this] Court.” 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1).

3 Lancaster does not argue that th e Michigan Supreme Court’s rejec

tion of the diminished-capacity defense in People v. Carpenter , 464 Mich. 223, 627 N. W. 2d 276 (2001), if applied only prospectively to defendants whose alleged offenses were committed after the decision was issued, would violate any co nstitutional provision. See Clark v. Arizona , 548 U. S. 735, 756–779 (2006) (rejecting due process challenge to Arizona’s restrictions on mental-disease and capacity evidence offered to negate mens rea ). We therefore address only whether the Michigan Court of Appeals unreasonably applied clearly established federal law in upholding Carpenter ’s retroactive application to Lancas

-6 METRISH v. LANCASTER

Opinion of the Court

A
In Bouie , the African-American petitioners were con

victed of trespass under South Carolina law after they refused to comply with orders to leave a drug store’s res

taurant department, a facility reserved for white custom

ers. 378 U. S., at 348–349. This Court held that the convictions violated the due process requirement that “a criminal statute give fair warning of the conduct which it prohibits.” Id. , at 350. The state statute under which the petitioners were convicted, the Court emphasized, prohib

ited “ entry upon the lands of another . . . after notice from the owner or tenant prohibiting such entry.” Id. , at 349– 350 (emphasis added and internal quotation marks omit

ted). It was undisputed that the petitioners were invited to enter the store and had received no notice that they were barred from the restaurant area before they occupied booth seats. Id. , at 350. Nevertheless, the South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the petitioners’ convictions based on its prior decision in Charleston v. Mitchell , 239 S. C. 376, 123 S. E. 2d 512 (1961). Bouie , 378 U. S., at 350, n. 2. The Mitchell decision, which the South Carolina Supreme Court found dispositive, was rendered 21 months after the petitioners’ arrest. 378 U. S., at 348, 350, n. 2. Mitchell held that the trespass statute under which the petitioners were convicted reached not on ly unauthorized entries; it proscribed as well “the act of remaining on the premises of another after receiving notice to leave.” 378 U. S., at 350. We held that the Due Process Clause prohibited Mitch

ell ’s retroactive application to the Bouie petitioners. In so ruling, we stressed that Mitchell ’s interpretation of the South Carolina trespass statute was “clearly at variance with the statutory language” and “ha[d] not the slightest support in prior South Carolina decisions.” 378 U. S., at 356. Due process, we said, does not countenance an “un

-

—————— ter’s case.7 Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court
foreseeable and retroactive ju dicial expansion of narrow and precise statutory language.” Id. , at 352. In Rogers , the petitioner contested the Tennessee Su

preme Court’s retroactive abolition of the common-law “year and a day rule.” 532 U. S., at 453. That rule barred a murder conviction “unless [the] victim had died by the defendant’s act within a year and a day of the act.” Ibid. The victim in Rogers had died some 15 months after the petitioner stabbed him. Id. , at 454. We held that the Tennessee Supreme Court’s refusa l to adhere to the year and a day rule in the petitioner’s case did not violate due

process. Id. , at 466–467. The “due process limitations on the retroactive application of judicial decisions,” we ex

plained, are not coextensive with the limitations placed on legislatures by the Constitution’s Ex Post Facto Clauses. Id. , at 459. See also U. S. Const., Art. I, §9, cl. 3; id. , §10, cl. 1; Calder v. Bull , 3 Dall. 386, 390 (1798) ( seriatim opinion of Chase, J.) (describing four categories of laws prohibited by the Constitution’s Ex Post Facto Clauses). Strictly applying ex post facto principles to judicial deci

sionmaking, we recognized, “would place an unworkable and unacceptable restraint on normal judicial processes and would be incompatible with the resolution of uncer

tainty that marks any evolving legal system.” Rogers

, 532 U. S., at 461. “[J]udicial alteration of a common law doctrine of criminal law,” we therefore held, “violates the principle of fair warning, and hence must not be given retroactive effect, only wher e [the alteration] is ‘unex

pected and indefensible by re ference to the law which had been expressed prior to the conduct in issue.’ ” Id. , at 462 (quoting Bouie , 378 U. S., at 354). Judged by this standard, we explained, the retroactive abolition of the year and a day rule encountered no consti

tutional impediment. First, the rule was “widely viewed as an outdated relic of the common law” and had been “legislatively or judicially abo lished in the vast majority of8 METRISH v. LANCASTER

Opinion of the Court
jurisdictions recently to have addressed the issue.” Rog

ers , 532 U. S., at 462–463. Second, the rule “had only the most tenuous foothold” in Tennessee, having been men

tioned in reported Tennessee de cisions “only three times, and each time in dicta.” Id. , at 464. Abolishing the obso

lete rule in Rogers’ case, we were satisfied, was not “the sort of unfair and arbitrary judicial action against which the Due Process Clause aims to protect.” Id. , at 466–467.

B
1 Does the Michigan Court of Appeals’ rejection of Lan

caster’s due process claim represent an unreasonable application of the law we declared in Bouie and Rogers ? Addressing that question, we first summarize the history of the diminished-capacity defense in Michigan. The Michigan Court of Appeals first recognized the defense in People v. Lynch , 47 Mich. App. 8, 208 N. W. 2d 656 (1973). See Carpenter , 464 Mich., at 233, 627 N. W. 2d, at 281. The defendant in Lynch was convicted of first-degree murder for star ving her newborn daughter. 47 Mich. App., at 9, 208 N. W. 2d, at 656. On appeal, the defendant challenged the trial court’s exclusion of psychi

atric testimony “bearing on [her] state of mind.” Id. , at 14, 208 N. W. 2d, at 659. She sought to introduce this evi

dence not to show she was legally insane at the time of her child’s death. 4 Instead, her plea was that she lacked the

mens rea necessary to commit first-degree murder. Ibid.

——————

4 At the time of Lynch , Michigan courts used a two-part test for insan

ity derived from the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision in People v. Durfee , 62 Mich. 487, 494, 29 N. W. 109, 112 (1886). The Durfee test asked “1) whether defendant knew what he was doing was right or wrong; and 2) if he did, did he have the power, the will power, to resist doing the wrongful act?” People v. Martin , 386 Mich. 407, 418, 192 N. W. 2d 215, 220 (1971). See also Carpenter , 464 Mich., at 234, n. 7, 627 N. W. 2d, at 281, n. 7.9 Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court
Reversing the defendant’s conv iction and remanding for a new trial, the Michigan Court of Appeals rejected the view “that mental capacity is an al l or nothing matter and that only insanity . . . negates criminal intent.” Id. , at 20, 208 N. W. 2d, at 662. Aligning itself with the “majority . . . view,” the court permitted defendants to present relevant psychiatric “testimony bearing on intent.” Id. , at 20–21, 208 N. W. 2d, at 662–663. See also id. , at 20, 208 N. W. 2d, at 662 (noting that “such medical proof ” is “sometimes called proof of diminished or partial responsibility”). In 1975, two years after the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision in Lynch , the Michigan Legislature enacted “a com

prehensive statutory scheme setting forth the require

ments for and the effects of asserting a defense based on either mental illness or mental retardation.” Carpen

ter , 464 Mich., at 226, 627 N. W. 2d, at 277. See also 1975 Mich. Pub. Acts pp. 384–388. That legislation, which remained in effect at the time of the April 1993 shooting at issue here, provided that “[a] person is legally insane if, as a result of mental illness . . . or . . . mental retardation . . . that person lacks substantial capacity either to appreciatethe wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law.” Id. , at 386 (codified as amended, Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. §768.21a(1) (West 2000)). The legislature required defendants in felony cases to notify the prosecution and the court at least 30 days before trial of their in tent to assert an insanity de

fense. 1975 Mich. Pub. Acts p. 385 (codified as amended, §768.20a(1)). Defendants raising an insanity defense, the legislature further provided, must submit to a court

ordered psychiatric examination. Id ., at 385 (codified as amended, §768.20a(2)). The 1975 Act also introduced the verdict of “guilty but mentally ill” for defendants who suffer from mental illness but do not satisfy the legal definition of insanity. Id ., at 387 (codified as amended, §768.36(1) (West Cum. Supp.10 METRISH v. LANCASTER

Opinion of the Court
2013)). The legislature provided for the psychiatric evalu

ation and treatment of defendants found “guilty but men

tally ill” but did not exempt them from the sentencing provisions applicable to defend ants without mental illness. Id ., at 387–388 (codified as amended, §§768.36(3)–(4)). Although the 1975 Act did not specifically address the defense of diminished capacity, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled in 1978 that the defense “comes within th[e] codified definition of legal insanity.” People v. Mangia

pane , 85 Mich. App. 379, 395, 271 N. W. 2d 240, 249. Therefore, the court held, a defendant claiming that he lacked the “mental capacity to entertain the specific intent required as an element of the crime with which he [was] charged” had to comply with the statutory procedural requirements applicable to insanity defenses, including the requirements of pretrial notice and submission to court-ordered examination. Ibid. Because the 1975 Act did not indicate which party bears the burden of proof on the issue of insanity, Michigan courts continued to apply th e common-law burden-shifting framework in effect at the time of the insanity defense’s codification. See People v. McRunels , 237 Mich. App. 168, 172, 603 N. W. 2d 95, 98 (1999). Under that framework,a criminal defendant bore the initial burden of presenting some evidence of insanity, at which point the burden shifted to the prosecution to prove the defendant’s sanity beyond a reasonable doubt. See In re Certified Question

, 425 Mich. 457, 465–466, 390 N. W. 2d 620, 623–624 (1986); People v. Savoie , 419 Mich. 118, 126, 349 N. W. 2d 139, 143 (1984). The Michigan Court of Appeals applied the same burden-shifting framework to the diminished

capacity defense. See People v. Denton , 138 Mich. App. 568, 571–572, 360 N. W. 2d 245, 247–248 (1984). In 1994, however, the Michigan Legislature amended Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. §768.21a, the statute codifying the insanity defense, to provide that the defendant bears11 Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court
“the burden of proving the defense of insanity by a pre

ponderance of the evidence.” 1994 Mich. Pub. Acts p. 252 (codified at §768.21a(3)). In Carpenter , the defendant argued that the trial court had erred by applying the 1994 Act to require him to establish his diminished-capacity defense by a preponderance of the evidence. 464 Mich., at 225–226, 235, 627 N. W. 2d, at 277, 282. Rejecting this contention, the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the defendant’s convictions. See People v. Carpenter , No. 204051, 1999 WL 33438799 (July 16, 1999) ( per curiam ). Consistent with its decision in Mangiapane , the court held that the 1994 statutory amendments applied to defend

ants raising the diminished-capacity defense, and it fur

ther held that requiring defendants to establish their diminished capacity by a preponderance of the evidence did not unconstitutionally relie ve the prosecution of its burden to prove the mens rea elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. , at *1–*2. In turn, the Michigan Supreme Court also affirmed, but it did so on an entirely differe nt ground. As earlier stated,

see supra , at 2–3, the court concluded that in no case could criminal defendants invoke the diminished-capacity de

fense, for that defense was not encompassed within the “comprehensive statutory scheme” the Michigan Legisla

ture had enacted to govern defenses based on mental illness or retardation. Carpenter , 464 Mich., at 236, 627 N. W. 2d, at 282. Noting that previously it had “acknowl

edged in passing the concept of the diminished capacity defense,” 5 Michigan’s high court emphasized that it had

——————

5 Carpenter cited three decisions in which the Michigan Supreme Court had previously mentioned the diminished-capacity defense: (1) People v. Lloyd , 459 Mich. 433, 450, 590 N. W. 2d 738, 745 (1999) ( per curiam ), which held that defense counsel was not constitutionally ineffective in presenting a diminish ed-capacity defense rather than an insanity defense; (2) People v. Pickens , 446 Mich. 298, 329–331, 521 N. W. 2d 797, 811–812 (1994), which rejected a defendant’s claim that12 METRISH v. LANCASTER

Opinion of the Court
“never specifically authorized . . . use [of the defense] in Michigan courts.” Id. , at 232–233, 627 N. W. 2d, at 281. Squarely addressing the issue for the first time, the court concluded that the diminished-capacity defense was in

compatible with the Michigan Legislature’s “conclusiv[e] determin[ation]” of the circumstances under which “men

tal incapacity can serve as a basis for relieving [a defend

ant] from criminal responsibility.” Id. , at 237, 627 N. W. 2d, at 283. The statutory scheme enacted by the Michigan Legislature, the court held, “created an all or nothing insanity defense.” Ibid. But cf. supra , at 9. A defendant who is “mentally ill or retarded yet not legally insane,” the court explained, “may be found ‘guilty but mentally ill,’ ” but the legislature had foreclosed the use of “evidence of mental incapacity short of insanity . . . to avoid or reduce criminal responsibility by negating specific intent.” 464 Mich., at 237, 627 N. W. 2d, at 283.

2 The Michigan Court of Appeals concluded that applying Carpenter retroactively to Lancaster’s case did not violate due process, for Carpenter “concerned an unambiguous statute that was interpreted by the [Michigan] Supreme Court for the first time.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 77a. As

—————— his attorney rendered ineffective assistance by failing to pursue a diminished-capacity defense; and (3) People v. Griffin , 433 Mich. 860, 444 N. W. 2d 139, 140 (1989) ( per curiam ), a summary order remanding a case to the trial court for a hearin g on the defendant’s claim that the defendant’s attorney was ineffective “for failing to explore defenses of diminished capacity and insanity.” See Carpenter , 464 Mich., at 232– 233, 627 N. W. 2d, at 281. See also 683 F. 3d 740, 746–749, 751 (CA6 2012) (describing additional Michig an Supreme Court decisions that mention the diminished-capacity defe nse, but acknowledging that the Michigan Supreme Court “did not sq uarely address the validity of the defense until” its 2001 decision in Carpenter ); App. to Brief for Re

spondent A–1, A–3 to A–4 (citing eight pre- Carpenter Michigan Su

preme Court decisions mentioning the diminished-capacity defense).13 Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court
earlier Michigan Court of Appeals decisions indicate, see

supra, at 8–10, the bearing of the 1975 legislation on the diminished-capacity defense may not have been apparent

pre- Carpenter . But in light of our precedent and the history recounted above, see Part II–B–1, supra , the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision applying Carpenter retroac

tively does not warrant disapprobation as “an unreasonable application of . . . clearly established [f]ederal law.” 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1). This case is a far cry from Bouie , where, unlike Rogers

, the Court held that the retroacti ve application of a judicial decision violated due process. In Bouie , the South Caro

lina Supreme Court had unexpectedly expanded “narrow and precise statutory language” that, as written, did not reach the petitioners’ conduct. 378 U. S., at 352. In Car

penter , by contrast, the Michigan Supreme Court rejected a diminished-capacity defense that the court reasonably found to have no home in a comprehensive, on-point stat

ute enacted by the Michigan Legislature. Carpenter thus presents the inverse of the situation this Court confronted in Bouie . Rather than broadening a statute that was narrow on its face, Carpenter disapproved lower court precedent recognizing a defense Michigan’s high court found, on close inspection, to lack statutory grounding. The situation we confronted in Bouie bears scant resem

blance to this case, and our resolution of that controversy hardly makes disallowance of Lancaster’s diminished

capacity defense an unreasonable reading of this Court’s law. On the other hand, as the Sixth Circuit recognized, see 683 F. 3d, at 749–751, Lancaster’s argument against applying Carpenter retroactively is arguably less weak than the argument opposing retroactivity we rejected in Rogers . Unlike the year and a day rule at issue in Rogers

, the diminished-capacity defens e is not an “outdated relic of the common law” widely rejected by modern courts and14 METRISH v. LANCASTER

Opinion of the Court
legislators. 532 U. S., at 462. To the contrary, the Model Penal Code sets out a version of the defense. See ALI, Model Penal Code §4.02(1), pp. 216–217 (1985) (“Evidence that the defendant suffered from a mental disease or defect is admissible whenever it is relevant to prove that the defendant did or did not have a state of mind that is an element of the offense.”). See also id. , Comment 2, at 219 (“The Institute perceived no justification for a limita

tion on evidence that may bear significantly on a determi

nation of the mental state of the defendant at the time of the commission of the crime.”). And not long before the 1993 shooting at issue here, the American Bar Association had approved criminal-justice guidelines that (1) favored the admissibility of mental-hea lth evidence offered to negate mens rea , and (2) reported that a majority of States allowed presentation of such evidence in at least some circumstances. See ABA Crimin al Justice Mental Health Standards §7–6.2, and Commentary, pp. 347–349, and n. 2 (1989). See also Clark v. Arizona , 548 U. S. 735, 800 (2006) (K ENNEDY , J., dissenting) (reporting that in 2006, “a substantial majority of the States” permitted the intro

duction of “mental-illness evidence to negate mens rea ”). Furthermore, the year and a day rule was mentioned only three times in dicta in Tennessee reported decisions. Rogers , 532 U. S., at 464. The diminished-capacity de

fense, by contrast, had been adhered to repeatedly by the Michigan Court of Appeals. See supra, at 8–10. It had also been “ ‘acknowledged in passing’ ” in Michigan Su

preme Court decisions and was reflected in the Michigan State Bar’s pattern jury instructions. 683 F. 3d, at 746– 749 (quoting Carpenter , 464 Mich., at 232, 627 N. W. 2d, at 281). These considerations, however, are hardly sufficient to warrant federal habeas relief under 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1)’s demanding standard. See Williams v. Tay

lor , 529 U. S. 362, 410 (2000) (“[A]n unreasonable applica

-15 Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013)

Opinion of the Court

tion of federal law is different from an incorrect appli

cation of federal law.”). Rogers did not hold that a newly announced judicial rule may be applied retroactively only if the rule it replaces was an “outdated relic” rarely ap

pearing in a jurisdiction’s case law. 532 U. S., at 462–467. Distinguishing Rogers , a case in which we rejected a due process claim, thus does littl e to bolster Lancaster’s argu

ment that the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision unrea

sonably applied clearly established federal law. See Wil

liams , 529 U. S., at 412 (the phrase “clearly established [f]ederal law” in §2254(d)(1) “refers to the holdings . . . of this Court’s decisions as of the time of the relevant state

court decision” (emphasis added)). This Court has never found a due process violation in circumstances remotely resembling Lancaster’s case— i.e.

, where a state supreme court, squarely addressing a par

ticular issue for the first time , rejected a consistent line of lower court decisions based on the supreme court’s rea

sonable interpretation of the language of a controlling statute. Fairminded jurists could conclude that a state supreme court decision of that order is not “unexpected and indefensible by reference to [existing] law.” Rogers

, 532 U. S., at 462 (internal quotation marks omitted). Lancaster therefore is not entitled to federal habeas relief on his due process claim.

* * * For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is Reversed.