Case Name: BUTLER v. McKELLAR, WARDEN, et al.
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1990-03-05
Citations: 494 U.S. 407
Docket Number: No. 88-6677
Parties: BUTLER v. McKELLAR, WARDEN, et al.
Judges: Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which White, O’Connor, Scalia, and Kennedy, JJ., joined. Brennan, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Marshall, J., joined, and in Parts I, II, and III of which Blackmun and Stevens, JJ., joined, post, p. 417.
Reporter: United States Reports
Volume: 494
Pages: 407–432

Head Matter:
BUTLER v. McKELLAR, WARDEN, et al.
No. 88-6677.
Argued October 30, 1989
Decided March 5, 1990
Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which White, O’Connor, Scalia, and Kennedy, JJ., joined. Brennan, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Marshall, J., joined, and in Parts I, II, and III of which Blackmun and Stevens, JJ., joined, post, p. 417.
John H. Blume, by appointment of the Court, 490 U. S. 1079, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were David I. Brack and Dale T. Cobb, Jr.
Donald J. Zelenka, Chief Deputy Attorney General of South Carolina, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief was T. Travis Medlock, Attorney General, pro se.

Opinion:
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner Horace Butler was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Pamela Lane. After his conviction became final on direct appeal, Butler collaterally attacked his conviction by way of a petition for federal habeas corpus. Butler relied on our decision in Arizona v. Roberson, 486 U. S. 675 (1988), decided after his conviction became final on direct appeal. We have held, however, that a new decision generally is not applicable in cases on collateral review unless the decision was dictated by precedent existing at the time the petitioner's conviction became final. Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302 (1989); Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989). We hold that our ruling in Roberson was not so dictated and that Butler's claim is not within either of two narrow exceptions to the general rule.
Pamela Lane, a clerk at a convenience store near Charleston, South Carolina, was last seen alive when she left work riding a moped late in the evening of July 17, 1980. The next day several fishermen discovered Lane's body near a bridge, and the following day a local minister found Lane's moped submerged in a pond behind his church.
Petitioner Butler was arrested six weeks later on an unrelated assault and battery charge and placed in the Charleston County Jail. After invoking his Fifth Amendment right to counsel, Butler retained counsel who appeared with him at a bond hearing on August 31, 1980. He was unable to make bond, however, and was returned to the county jail. Butler's attorney would later contend in state collateral relief proceedings that after the bond hearing, he had told the police officers not to question Butler further. The officers testified that they remembered no such instruction.
Early in the morning of September 1, 1980, Butler was taken from the jail to the Charleston County Police station. He was then informed for the first time that he was a suspect in Lane's murder. After receiving Miranda warnings, see Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), Butler indicated that he understood his rights and signed two "waiver of rights" forms. The police then interrogated Butler about the murder. Butler did not request his attorney's presence at any time during the interrogation.
Butler offered two explanations for Lane's death. First, he claimed that a friend, one White, killed Lane and then sought Butler's help in disposing of the moped. When his in terrogators evidenced skepticism over this statement, Butler tried again. He said that he had come upon Lane in his car and had motioned her over to the side of the road. She then voluntarily accompanied him in a drive to a nearby wooded area where the two engaged in consensual sex. Afterwards Lane threatened to accuse Butler of rape when she realized she would be late getting home. Butler maintained that he panicked, shot Lane with a handgun, and dumped her body off a bridge. In this version of the story, Butler asserted that White helped him dispose of the moped. Butler later took the police to the locations of the various events culminating in Lane's death.
The State indicted Butler and brought him to trial on a charge of first-degree murder. The trial court denied Butler's motion to suppress the statements given to police, and the statements were introduced into evidence. The jury found Butler guilty and, in a separate proceeding, sentenced him to death concluding that hé committed the murder during the commission of a rape. The Supreme Court of South Carolina upheld Butler's conviction on direct appeal, State v. Butler, 277 S. C. 452, 290 S. E. 2d 1, and we denied certiorari. Butler v. South Carolina, 459 U. S. 932 (1982). Subsequently, Butler unsuccessfully petitioned for collateral relief in the State's courts, see Butler v. State, 286 S. C. 441, 334 S. E. 2d 813 (1985), and we again denied certiorari. Butler v. South Carolina, 474 U. S. 1094 (1986).
In May 1986, Butler filed this petition for federal habeas relief pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §2254. As characterized by the District Court, one question raised in the petition was "whether police had the right to initiate questioning about the murder knowing petitioner had retained an attorney for the assault charge." App. 119. The District Court dismissed the petition on respondents' motion for summary judgment.
On appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, see Butler v. Aiken, 846 F. 2d 255 (1988), Butler argued that Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U. S. 477 (1981), requires the police, during continuous custody, to refrain from all further questioning once an accused invokes his right to counsel on any offense. In support of his argument, Butler relied principally on United States ex rel. Espinoza v. Fairman, 813 F. 2d 117 (CA7 1987). The Court of Appeals rejected Butler's Espinoza-based contention, finding the Seventh Circuit's ruling an unpersuasive and "dramatic" extension of Edivards. Butler, 846 F. 2d, at 258.
The court concluded that Butler's statements were preceded by appropriate warnings and a voluntary waiver of Fifth Amendment protections. The statements, therefore, were not obtained in violation of his constitutional rights or Edwards' prophylactic rule. According to the court, a properly initiated interrogation on an entirely different charge does not intrude into an accused's previously invoked rights but instead offers the accused an opportunity to weigh his rights intelligently in light of changed circumstances. When, as occurred in this case, the accused then freely waives any constitutional right to counsel and provides voluntary statements of an incriminating nature, there is no justification for undermining the search for the truth by suppressing those statements. Butler, 846 F. 2d, at 259. The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of Butler's petition, and approximately one month later, denied Butler's request for rehearing and suggestion for rehearing en banc.
On the same day the court denied Butler's rehearing petitions, we handed down our decision in Roberson. We held in Roberson that the Fifth Amendment bars police-initiated interrogation following a suspect's request for counsel in the context of a separate investigation. 486 U. S., at 682. On Butler's motion for reconsideration, the original Fourth Circuit panel considered Butler's new contention that Roberson requires suppression of his statements taken in the separate investigation of Lane's murder. Although the panel conceded that the substance of its prior conclusion "was cast into immediate and serious doubt" by our subsequent decision in Roberson, Butler v. Aiken, 864 F. 2d 24, 25 (1988), it nevertheless determined that Butler was not entitled to the retroactive benefit of Roberson. According to the panel, the Edwards-Roberson limitations on police interrogation are only tangentially related to the truth-finding function. 864 F. 2d, at 25. They are viewed most accurately as part of the prophylactic protection of the Fifth Amendment right to counsel created to be "guidelines" for the law enforcement profession. Ibid, (citing Roberson, supra, at 680-682). The interrogation of Butler, while unquestionably contrary to present "guidelines," was conducted in strict accordance with established law at the time. The panel, therefore, denied Butler's petition for rehearing. A majority of the Circuit Judges denied, over a dissent, Butler's petition for a rehearing en banc. We granted certiorari, 490 U. S. 1045 (1989), and now affirm.
Last Term in Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302 (1989), we held that in both capital and noncapital cases, "new rules will not be applied or announced in cases on collateral review unless they fall into one of two exceptions." Id., at 313 (citing Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S., at 311-313; see infra, at 415-416 (discussing the exceptions and their inapplicability to the instant case). Referring to Teague, we reiterated that, in general, a case announces a "new rule" when it breaks new ground or imposes a new obligation on the States or the Federal Government. Penry, 492 U. S., at 314. Put differently, and, .indeed, more meaningfully for the majority of cases, a decision announces a new rule " 'if the result was not dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant's conviction became final.'" Ibid, (quoting Teague, supra, at 301) (emphasis in original).
A new decision that explicitly overrules an earlier holding obviously "breaks new ground" or "imposes a new obligation." In the vast majority of cases, however, where the new decision is reached by an extension of the reasoning of previous cases, the inquiry will be more difficult. We said in Teague:
" 'The relevant frame of reference . is not the purpose of the new rule whose benefit the [defendant] seeks, but instead the purposes for which the writ of habeas corpus is made available.' Mackey[v. United States, 401 U. S. 667, 682 (1971) (Harlan, J., concurring in judgments in part and dissenting in part)]. . . . 'The interest in leaving concluded litigation in a state of repose . . : may quite legitimately be found by those responsible for defining the scope of the writ to outweigh in some, many, or most instances the competing interest in readjudicating convictions according to all legal standards in effect when a habeas petition is filed.' . . . Given the 'broad scope of constitutional issues cognizable on habeas,' . it is 'sounder, in adjudicating habeas petitions, generally to apply the law prevailing at the time a conviction became final than it is to seek to dispose of [habeas] cases on the basis of intervening changes in constitutional interpretation.' . . . '[T]he threat of habeas serves as a necessary additional incentive for trial and appellate courts throughout the land to conduct their proceedings in a manner consistent with established constitutional standards. In order to perform this deterrence function, . . . the habeas court need only apply the constitutional standards that prevailed at the time the original proceedings took place.'" Teague, supra, at 306 (plurality opinion) (emphasis added; some brackets in original; some internal citations omitted).
Teague further observed:
"[I]n many ways the application of new rules to cases on collateral review may be more intrusive than the enjoining of [state] criminal prosecutions . for it continually forces the States to marshal resources in order to keep in prison defendants whose trials and appeals conformed to then-existing constitutional standards. Furthermore, as we recognized in Engle v. Isaac,[456 U. S. 107, 128, n. 33 (1982),] '[s]tate courts are understandably frustrated when they faithfully apply existing constitutional law only to have a federal court discover, during a [habeas] proceeding, new constitutional commands.' . . . See also Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S.[443], 534 [(1953)] (Jackson, J., concurring in result) (state courts cannot 'anticipate, and so comply with, this Court's due process requirements or ascertain any standards to which this Court will adhere in prescribing them')." Teague, supra, at 310 (plurality opinion) (emphasis in original; some internal citations omitted).
The "new rule" principle therefore validates reasonable, good-faith interpretations of existing precedents made by state courts even though they are shown to be contrary to later decisions. Cf. United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 918-919 (1984) (assuming the exclusionary rule "effectively deters some police misconduct and provides incentives for the law enforcement profession as a whole to conduct itself in accord with the Fourth Amendment, it cannot be expected, and should not be applied, to deter objectively reasonable law enforcement activity").
Butler contends that Roberson did not establish a new rule and is, therefore, available to support his habeas petition. Butler argues that Roberson was merely an application of Edwards to a slightly different set of facts. Brief for Petitioner 9; Reply Brief for Petitioner 18. In support of his position, Butler points out that the majority had said that Roberson's case was directly controlled by Edwards. Brief for Petitioner 10. At oral argument Butler's counsel also pointed out.that the Roberson opinion had rejected Arizona's request to create an "exception" to Edivards for interrogations concerning separate investigations. Tr. of Oral Arg. 4. According to counsel, the opinion in Roberson showed that the Court believed Roberson's case to be within the "logical compass" of Edwards. Tr. of Oral Arg. passim.
But the fact that a court says that its decision is within the "logical compass" of an earlier decision, or indeed that it is "controlled" by a prior decision, is not conclusive for purposes of deciding whether the current decision is a "new rule" under Teague. Courts frequently view their decisions as being "controlled" or "governed" by prior opinions even when aware of reasonable contrary conclusions reached by other courts. In Roberson, for instance, the Court found Edwards controlling but acknowledged a significant difference of opinion on the part of several lower courts that had considered the question previously. 486 U. S., at 679, n. 3. That the outcome in Roberson was susceptible to debate among reasonable minds is evidenced further by the differing positions taken by the judges of the Courts of Appeals for the Fourth and Seventh Circuits noted previously. It would not have been an illogical or even a grudging application of Edwards to decide that it did not extend to the facts of Roberson. We hold, therefore, that Roberson announced a "new rule."
The question remains whether the new rule in Roberson nevertheless comes within one of the two recognized exceptions under which a new rule is available on collateral review. Under the first exception, "a new rule should be applied retroactively if it places 'certain kinds of primary, private individual conduct beyond the power of the criminal law-making authority to proscribe.'" Teague, 489 U. S., at 307 (plurality opinion) (quoting Mackey, 401 U. S. 667, 692 (1971) (Harlan, J., concurring in judgments in part and dissenting in part)). This exception is clearly inapplicable. The proscribed conduct in the instant case is capital murder, the prosecution of which is, to put it mildly, not prohibited by the rule in Roberson. Nor did Roberson address any "categorical guarantees accorded by the Constitution" such as a prohibition on the imposition of a particular punishment on a certain class of offenders. See Penry, 492 U. S., at 329.
Under the second exception, a new rule may be applied on collateral review "if it requires the observance of 'those procedures that . . . are "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty."'" Teague, supra, at 311 (plurality opinion) (quoting Mackey, supra, at 693 (Harlan, J., concurring in judgments in part and dissenting in part) (in turn quoting Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 325 (1937) (Cardozo, J.))). Teague, it should be noted, however, discerned a latent danger in relying solely on this famous language from Palko:
"Were we to employ the Palko test without more, we would be doing little more than importing into a very different context the terms of the debate over incorporation. . . . Reviving the Palko test now, in this area of law, would be unnecessarily anachronistic. . . . [W]e believe that Justice Harlan's concerns about the difficulty in identifying both the existence and the value of accuracy-enhancing procedural rules can be addressed by limiting the scope of the second exception to those new procedures without which the likelihood of an accurate conviction is seriously diminished.
"Because we operate from the premise that such procedures would be so central to an accurate determination of innocence or guilt, we believe it unlikely that many such components of basic due process have yet to emerge." Teague, supra, at 312-313 (plurality opinion).
Because a violation of Roberson's added restrictions on police investigatory procedures would not seriously diminish the likelihood of obtaining an accurate determination — indeed, it may increase that likelihood — we conclude that Roberson did not establish any principle that would come within the second exception.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore
Affirmed.