(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2012 1 

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, Lancaster asserted a defense of diminished capacity. Under then-prevailing

Michigan Court of Appeals precedent, the diminished-capacity defense permitted a legally sane defendant to present evidence of mental illness to negate the specific intent required to commit a particular 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. Affirming, the Michigan Court of Appeals rejected Lancaster’s argument that the trial court’s retroactive application of Carpenter violated due process.

Lancaster reasserted his due process claim in a federal habeas petition. The District Court denied the petition, but the Sixth Circuit

reversed. Concluding that the Michigan Supreme Court’s 2001 rejection 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, unreasonably 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 the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision rested on “an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” Harrington 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 after entering without notice that the store’s policy barred their entry. 

They were convicted under a South Carolina trespass statute prohibiting “ ‘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 petitioners’ convictions on its 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 petitioners, 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 defendant’s act within a year and a day of the act.” 532 U. S., at 453. 

This Court found no due process violation. “[J]udicial alteration of a 

common law doctrine of criminal law,” the Court held, “violates the 

principle of fair warning, and hence must not be given retroactive effect, 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 abolition of the year and a day rule encountered no constitutional impediment. The rule was “widely viewed as an outdated relic of the common law,” had been routinely rejected by modern courts and 
 

 

Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013) 3 

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 process claim does not represent an unreasonable application of the law 

this Court declared in Bouie and Rogers. Pp. 8–15.

(1) The Michigan Court of Appeals first recognized the diminished-capacity defense in 1973. Two years later, the Michigan Legislature prescribed comprehensive requirements for defenses based on 

mental illness or retardation. In 1978, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that the diminished-capacity defense fit within the codified definition of insanity. The Michigan Supreme Court’s 2001 decision in Carpenter, however, rejected that position, holding that the

diminished-capacity defense was not encompassed within the Michigan 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 precedent and the history of Michigan’s 

diminished-capacity defense, the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision

applying Carpenter retroactively is not “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 the South Carolina Supreme 

Court unexpectedly expanded “narrow and precise statutory language” 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 defense that the court reasonably

found to have no home in a comprehensive, on-point statute enacted

by the Michigan Legislature. Although 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 “outdated relic” rarely appearing in a jurisdiction’s case law. 532 U. S., 

at 462–467. Distinguishing Rogers thus does little to bolster Lancaster’s argument that the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision unreasonably 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 addressing a particular issue for the first time, rejected a consistent line 

of lower court decisions based on the supreme court’s reasonable 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.’ ” 

Id., at 462. Pp. 12–15. 

683 F. 3d 740, reversed. 

GINSBURG, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. 
 

 

_________________ 

_________________ 

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

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, Washington, 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] 

JUSTICE GINSBURG 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 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA).

Under that standard, Lancaster may gain relief only if 

the state-court decision he assails “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established 

Federal law, as determined by [this] Court.” 28 U. S. C. 

§2254(d)(1). We hold that Lancaster’s petition does not 

meet AEDPA’s requirement and that the United States 
 

 

2 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 thenprevailing Michigan Court of Appeals precedent, a defendant who pleaded diminished capacity, although he was

legally sane, could “offer evidence of some mental abnormality 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. (internal 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 possessing a firearm in the commission of a felony, in violation 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 remove 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 

—————— 

1As relevant here, a homicide constitutes first-degree murder under 

Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. §750.316 if it is “wil[l]ful, deliberate, and 

premeditated.” 
Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013) 3 

Opinion of the Court 

Court of Appeals] decisions” recognizing the diminishedcapacity 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 statutory scheme concerning defenses based on either mental illness or mental retardation.” 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 insanity to avoid or reduce criminal 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 Lancaster’s second trial applied Carpenter’s holding and therefore disallowed renewal of Lancaster’s diminished-capacity 

defense. Following a bench trial, Lancaster was again 

convicted. The trial court imposed a sentence of life imprisonment 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. The 

appeals court rejected Lancaster’s argument that retroactive application of Carpenter to his case violated his right 

to due process. “[D]ue process concerns prevent retroactive application [of judicial decisions] 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, “because 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 federal 
 

 

 

4 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 entitled to a new trial at which he could present his diminishedcapacity defense. Id., at 754. Dissenting, Chief Judge

Batchelder concluded that the “Michigan Court of Appeals[’] denial of Lancaster’s due process claim was reasonable . . . 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 strictures, Lancaster must establish that, in rejecting his due 

process claim, the Michigan Court of Appeals unreasonably applied federal law clearly established in our decisions. 

See 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1).2 This standard, we have 

—————— 

2Title 28 U. S. C. §2254(d) provides that where, as here, a state prisoner’s habeas claim “was adjudicated on the merits in State court,” a

federal court may not grant relief with respect to that claim unless the 
 

Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013) 5 

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 demanding 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 claim (1) “resulted in a decision that

was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly 

established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the 

United States,” or (2) “resulted in a decision that was based on an

unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” Lancaster does not allege that

the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision “was based on an unreasonable

determination 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 materially indistinguishable facts”). The 

only question in this case, 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). 3Lancaster does not argue that the Michigan Supreme Court’s rejection 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 constitutional 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 convicted of trespass under South Carolina law after they

refused to comply with orders to leave a drug store’s restaurant department, a facility reserved for white customers. 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, prohibited “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 omitted). 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 only 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 Mitchell’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. 
 

 

 

 

Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013) 7 

Opinion of the Court 

foreseeable and retroactive judicial expansion of narrow 

and precise statutory language.” Id., at 352. 

In Rogers, the petitioner contested the Tennessee Supreme 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 refusal 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 explained, 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 decisionmaking, we recognized, “would place an unworkable 

and unacceptable restraint on normal judicial processes 

and would be incompatible with the resolution of uncertainty 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 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 

(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 constitutional impediment. First, the rule was “widely viewed

as an outdated relic of the common law” and had been 

“legislatively or judicially abolished in the vast majority of 
 

 

 

 

8 METRISH v. LANCASTER 

Opinion of the Court 

jurisdictions recently to have addressed the issue.” Rogers, 532 U. S., at 462–463. Second, the rule “had only the

most tenuous foothold” in Tennessee, having been mentioned in reported Tennessee decisions “only three times,

and each time in dicta.” Id., at 464. Abolishing the obsolete 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 Lancaster’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 starving 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 psychiatric testimony “bearing on [her] state of mind.” Id., at 14, 

208 N. W. 2d, at 659. She sought to introduce this evidence 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. 

—————— 

4At the time of Lynch, Michigan courts used a two-part test for insanity 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. 
Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013) 9 

Opinion of the Court 

Reversing the defendant’s conviction and remanding for a 

new trial, the Michigan Court of Appeals rejected the view 

“that mental capacity is an all 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 comprehensive statutory scheme setting forth the requirements for and the effects of asserting a defense based 

on either mental illness or mental retardation.” Carpenter, 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 appreciate

the 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 intent to assert an insanity defense. 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 courtordered 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 evaluation and treatment of defendants found “guilty but mentally ill” but did not exempt them from the sentencing

provisions applicable to defendants 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. Mangiapane, 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 the 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 diminishedcapacity 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 bears 
Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013) 11 

Opinion of the Court 

“the burden of proving the defense of insanity by a preponderance 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 defendants raising the diminished-capacity defense, and it further held that requiring defendants to establish their

diminished capacity by a preponderance of the evidence

did not unconstitutionally relieve 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 different ground. As earlier stated, 

see supra, at 2–3, the court concluded that in no case could 

criminal defendants invoke the diminished-capacity defense, for that defense was not encompassed within the 

“comprehensive statutory scheme” the Michigan Legislature 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 “acknowledged 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 diminished-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 that 
 

12 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 incompatible with the Michigan Legislature’s “conclusiv[e]

determin[ation]” of the circumstances under which “mental incapacity can serve as a basis for relieving [a defendant] 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 hearing 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 Michigan Supreme Court decisions that

mention the diminished-capacity defense, but acknowledging that the 

Michigan Supreme Court “did not squarely address the validity of the 

defense until” its 2001 decision in Carpenter); App. to Brief for Respondent A–1, A–3 to A–4 (citing eight pre-Carpenter Michigan Supreme Court decisions mentioning the diminished-capacity defense). 
Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013) 13 

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 retroactively 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 retroactive application of a judicial

decision violated due process. In Bouie, the South Carolina 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 Carpenter, 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 statute 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 resemblance to this case, and our resolution of that controversy

hardly makes disallowance of Lancaster’s diminishedcapacity 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 defense is not an “outdated relic 

of the common law” widely rejected by modern courts and 
 

 

14 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 limitation on evidence that may bear significantly on a determination 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-health 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 Criminal 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) (KENNEDY, J., dissenting) (reporting that in 2006,

“a substantial majority of the States” permitted the introduction 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 defense, 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 Supreme 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. Taylor, 529 U. S. 362, 410 (2000) (“[A]n unreasonable applica-
 

 

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

Opinion of the Court 

tion of federal law is different from an incorrect application 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 appearing 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 little to bolster Lancaster’s argument that the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision unreasonably applied clearly established federal law. See Williams, 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 statecourt 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 particular issue for the first time, rejected a consistent line of

lower court decisions based on the supreme court’s reasonable 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.