Opinion ID: 3066088
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The standard for determining whether a claim is

Text: barred under Teague. In Caspari v. Bohlen, 510 U.S. 383 (1994), the Supreme Court set forth the test for determining whether a state prisoner’s claim was Teague-barred: “[A] case announces a new rule if the result was not dictated by precedent existing at the 2 Because it is clear that Ayala’s claims would be Teague-barred if reviewed de novo, the majority should have begun and ended with this Teague analysis, rather than reach the more difficult questions regarding the standard of review under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). AYALA V. WONG 73 time the defendant’s conviction became final.” Teague v. Lane, supra, 489 U.S. at 301. In determining whether a state prisoner is entitled to habeas relief, a federal court should apply Teague by proceeding in three steps. First, the court must ascertain the date on which the defendant’s conviction and sentence became final for Teague purposes. Second, the court must “[s]urve[y] the legal landscape as it then existed,” Graham v. Collins, supra, 506 U.S., at 468, and “determine whether a state court considering [the defendant’s] claim at the time his conviction became final would have felt compelled by existing precedent to conclude that the rule [he] seeks was required by the Constitution,” Saffle v. Parks, 494 U.S. 484, 488 (1990). Finally, even if the court determines that the defendant seeks the benefit of a new rule, the court must decide whether that rule falls within one of the two narrow exceptions to the nonretroactivity principle. See Gilmore v. Taylor, 508 U.S. 333, 345 (1993). Id. at 390 (emphasis as quoted in Caspari).3 There is no dispute that Ayala’s conviction became final in May 2001, when the Supreme Court denied certiorari, and Ayala does not assert that he comes within either of the two narrow exceptions. The remaining question is whether, in 3 In all quotations, the parallel citations have been omitted. 74 AYALA V. WONG May 2001, the unconstitutionality of ex parte procedure used by the trial court in 1986 was “dictated” by precedent.