Opinion ID: 219956
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Teague and retroactivity

Text: In Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), the Supreme Court set forth two regimes governing the retroactive application of constitutional principles to criminal cases. Teague divided the world into two categories, old rules and new rules. A rule is a new rule for Teague purposes if the result was not dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant's conviction became final. Id. at 301, 109 S.Ct. 1060. Teague held that a new rule is retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review if and only if one of two exceptions apply: (1) the new rule places certain kinds of criminal conduct beyond the power of the criminal law-making authority to proscribe; or (2) the new rule is a watershed rule[] of criminal procedure that alter[s] our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements that must be found to vitiate the fairness of a particular conviction. Teague, 489 U.S. at 311, 109 S.Ct. 1060 (emphasis in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). By contrast, an old rule, applies on both direct and collateral review. See Whorton v. Bockting, 549 U.S. 406, 416, 127 S.Ct. 1173, 167 L.Ed.2d 1 (2007). Thus, if Padilla did not announce a new rule, then Mr. Orocio would be entitled to invoke the protection of Padilla even though his conviction had achieved finality and his sentence was fully served prior to Padilla. If Padilla announced a new rule, however, then Mr. Orocio would have to demonstrate that it falls within one of the very narrow Teague exceptions.