Opinion ID: 2621237
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: S. Supreme Court case law and retroactivity in Nevada

Text: In regard to convictions like Colwell's which have become final before the promulgation of a new constitutional rule, the Constitution neither prohibits nor requires retrospective effect. [27] Beginning with Teague v. Lane in 1989, the Supreme Court established a general requirement of nonretroactivity of new rules in federal collateral review. [28] This requirement replaced an earlier, more open-ended retroactivity analysis which the Court had applied to each new constitutional rule, considering the purpose served by the new rule, the extent of reliance by law-enforcement authorities on the old rule, and the effect on the administration of justice of applying the new rule retroactively. [29] We have followed the Supreme Court's earlier analysis in our own case law. [30] The parties cited both this case law and Teague in their supplemental briefs. This court has also cited Teague, but we have not formally adopted its approach or even discussed the issue of retroactivity in light of it and its progeny. [31] Such a discussion is in order. In Teague, the Supreme Court, instead of focusing on the purpose and impact of a new constitutional rule, looked to the function of federal habeas review, which is to ensure that state courts conscientiously follow federal constitutional standards. The Court determined that this function is met by testing state convictions against the constitutional law recognized at the time of trial and direct appellate review, since state courts can only be expected to follow the law existing at the time of their decisions. Applying the law existing at that time also promotes finality in criminal prosecutions. Therefore, once a conviction has become final, federal habeas courts should generally not interfere with the state courts by applying new rules retroactively. The Court recognized two exceptions to this general requirement of nonretroactivity. [32] The first exception is a new rule placing certain kinds of primary, private individual conduct beyond the power of the criminal lawmaking authority to proscribe. [33] An example of this would be the Supreme Court's holding that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states from criminalizing marriages between persons of different races. [34] Such a rule is actually substantive, not procedural. [35] This exception also covers rules prohibiting a certain category of punishment for a class of defendants because of their status or offense. [36] An example of this is the Supreme Court's recent holding that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of mentally retarded criminals. [37] The second exception is a new rule establishing a procedure that implicate[s] the fundamental fairness of the trial [38] and without which the likelihood of an accurate conviction is seriously diminished. [39] Such a rule would be the right to counsel at trial. [40] If a rule falls within either of these exceptions, it applies even on collateral review of final cases. Teague is not controlling on this court, other than in the minimum constitutional protections established by its two exceptions. In other words, we may choose to provide broader retroactive application of new constitutional rules of criminal procedure than Teague and its progeny require. The Supreme Court has recognized that states may apply new constitutional standards in a broader range of cases than is required by the Court's decision not to apply the standards retroactively. [41] As the Oregon Supreme Court has stated: we are free to choose the degree of retroactivity or prospectivity which we believe appropriate to the particular rule under consideration, so long as we give federal constitutional rights at least as broad a scope as the United States Supreme Court requires. [42] The policy concerns behind Teague are partly germane to collateral review by this and other state courts and partly not. We share the concern that the finality of convictions not be unduly disturbed, but the need to prevent excessive interference by federal habeas courts has no application to habeas review by state courts themselves. And even the effect on finality is not as extreme when a state appellate court, as opposed to a federal court, decides to apply a rule retroactively: first, the decision affects only cases within that state, and second, most state collateral review occurs much sooner than federal collateral review. In addition, we are concerned with encouraging the district courts of this state to strive for perspicacious, reasonable application of constitutional principles in cases where no precedent appears to be squarely on point. Though we consider the approach to retroactivity set forth in Teague to be sound in principle, the Supreme Court has applied it so strictly in practice that decisions defining a constitutional safeguard rarely merit application on collateral review. First, the Court defines a new rule quite expansively. In Teague, the Court originally stated that a case announces a new rule when it breaks new ground or imposes a new obligation on the States or if the result was not dictated by precedent. [43] But the Court now deems a decision new even when it is controlled or governed by prior law [44] and is the most reasonable interpretation of that law, unless  no other interpretation was reasonable. [45] So most rules are considered new and given only prospective effect, absent an exception. Second, the two exceptions are narrowly drawn. As noted, one applies when primary, private individual conduct has been placed beyond criminal proscription. [46] The other is limited to watershed rules of fundamental fairness. [47] A rule that qualifies under this exception must not only improve accuracy, but also alter our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements essential to the fairness of a proceeding. [48] It is unlikely that many such components of basic due process have yet to emerge. [49] We appreciate that strictly constraining retroactivity serves the Supreme Court's purpose of circumscribing federal habeas review of state court decisions, but as a state court we choose not to bind quite so severely our own discretion in deciding retroactivity. We therefore choose to adopt with some qualification the approach set forth in Teague. We adopt the general framework of Teague, but reserve our prerogative to define and determine within this framework whether a rule is new and whether it falls within the two exceptions to nonretroactivity (as long as we give new federal constitutional rules at least as much retroactive effect as Teague does). Thus, consistent with the Teague framework, we will not apply a new constitutional rule of criminal procedure to finalized cases unless it falls within either of two exceptions. There is no bright-line rule for determining whether a rule is new, but there are basic guidelines to follow. As this court has stated, When a decision merely interprets and clarifies an existing rule ... and does not announce an altogether new rule of law, the court's interpretation is merely a restatement of existing law. [50] Similarly, a decision is not new if it has simply applied a well-established constitutional principle to govern a case which is closely analogous to those which have been previously considered in the prior case law. [51] We consider too sweeping the proposition, noted above, that a rule is new whenever any other reasonable interpretation of prior law was possible. However, a rule is new, for example, when the decision announcing it overrules precedent, [52] or disapprove[s] a practice this Court had arguably sanctioned in prior cases, or overturn[s] a longstanding practice that lower courts had uniformly approved. [53] When a rule is new, it will still apply retroactively in two instances: (1) if the rule establishes that it is unconstitutional to proscribe certain conduct as criminal or to impose a type of punishment on certain defendants because of their status or offense; or (2) if it establishes a procedure without which the likelihood of an accurate conviction is seriously diminished. These are basically the exceptions defined by the Supreme Court. But we do not limit the first exception to primary, private individual conduct, allowing the possibility that other conduct may be constitutionally protected from criminalization and warrant retroactive relief. And with the second exception, we do not distinguish a separate requirement of bedrock or watershed significance: if accuracy is seriously diminished without the rule, the rule is significant enough to warrant retroactive application. We feel that this adaptation of the approach taken in Teague and its progeny provides us with a fair and straightforward framework for determining retroactivity. An overview of retroactivity analysis and its application to appellant's case A court's determination of retroactivity in this state, therefore, requires the following analysis. The first inquiry for the court is whether the constitutional rule of criminal procedure under consideration is new. Retroactivity is an issue only when a rule is new. If a rule is not new, then it applies even on collateral review of final cases. If the rule is indeed new, the second inquiry is whether the conviction of the person seeking application of the rule has become final. A conviction becomes final when judgment has been entered, the availability of appeal has been exhausted, and a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court has been denied or the time for such a petition has expired. [54] When a conviction is not final, the court must apply a new rule of federal constitutional law: failure to apply a newly declared constitutional rule to criminal cases pending on direct review violates basic norms of constitutional adjudication. [55] If the person's conviction has become final, a new rule generally does not apply retroactively. So the third inquiry is whether either exception to nonretroactivity pertains. Did the rule establish that it is unconstitutional to proscribe certain conduct as criminal or to impose a type of punishment on certain defendants because of their status or offense? Or did it establish a procedure without which the likelihood of an accurate conviction is seriously diminished? If the answer to either question is yes, then the rule applies. In Colwell's case, our first inquiry is whether the constitutional rule of criminal procedure established in Ring is new. We determine that the rule is new. Ring applied prior case lawwhich had established the principle that a jury must find any fact (other than a prior conviction) that increases the maximum penalty for an offenseto closely analogous facts. This would suggest that Ring did not announce a new rule, but Ring also had to address another prior opinion which had held that this principle was inapposite to Arizona's capital sentencing scheme. The Court concluded that this prior opinion was untenable and overruled it. [56] Because Ring dealt with conflicting prior authority and expressly overruled precedent in announcing its rule, we conclude that the rule is new. Next, we must determine whether Colwell's conviction was final before Ring was published earlier this year. It clearly was: after this court affirmed Colwell's conviction on appeal, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in 1998. [57] Because the rule is new and Colwell's conviction is final, the rule does not apply retroactively here unless either exception to nonretroactivity pertains. We conclude that neither does. Ring did not forbid either the criminalization of any conduct or the punishment in any way of any class of defendants, so only the second exception arguably applies. Ring established that jurors, not judges, must make any factual findings necessary for imposition of the death penalty. Is this a procedure without which the likelihood of an accurate convictionor, in this case, sentenceis seriously diminished? We conclude that it is not. The Supreme Court in Ring did not determine that factfinding by either juries or judges was superior in capital cases. In response to Arizona's suggestion that judicial factfinding might better protect against arbitrary imposition of the death penalty, the Court stated: The Sixth Amendment jury trial right, however, does not turn on the relative rationality, fairness, or efficiency of potential factfinders. [58] The Court did declare that the superiority of judicial factfinding in capital cases is far from evident and noted that most states have entrusted factfinding in capital cases to juries. [59] But we believe it is clear that Ring is based simply on the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, not on a perceived need to enhance accuracy in capital sentencings, and does not throw into doubt the accuracy of death sentences handed down by three-judge panels in this state. We conclude therefore that the likelihood of an accurate sentence was not seriously diminished simply because a three-judge panel, rather than a jury, found the aggravating circumstances that supported Colwell's death sentence. We conclude that retroactive application of Ring on collateral review is not warranted. B. Ring does not apply here because appellant waived his right to a jury trial Alternatively, we conclude that Ring is not applicable to Colwell's case because, unlike Ring, Colwell pleaded guilty and waived his right to a jury trial. The district court thoroughly canvassed Colwell at the time he entered his guilty plea. The court specifically asked him if he understood that this matter will be submitted to a three-judge panel to determine the appropriate sentence regarding the count of murder, [60] and he answered yes. The court further informed Colwell that by pleading guilty he was giving up certain valuable rights. The court described these rights, beginning with a right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury. The court asked Colwell if he understood these rights and if he gave them up, and he answered yes to both questions. In his supplemental brief on this issue, Colwell does not dispute that his guilty plea was voluntary and knowing or that he waived his right to a jury trial. However, he claims that he only waived his right to have a jury determine his guilt, not his right to have a jury determine aggravating circumstances. The record clearly belies this claim. The record shows that Colwell was aware that if he pleaded guilty a three-judge panel would determine his sentence. He did not object to this, nor did he try to limit or condition in any way his waiver of his right to a jury trial. Ring concerned a defendant who pleaded not guilty and went to trial; it does not address waiver of the right to a jury trial. We do not read Ring as altering the legitimacy or effect of a defendant's guilty plea. The Supreme Court has held that the valid entry of a guilty plea in a state criminal court involves the waiver of several federal constitutional rights. [61] Among these is the right to trial by jury. [62] Colwell's guilty plea included an express waiver of his right to a jury trial and was valid. We conclude that nothing in Ring undermines the lawfulness of his resulting conviction and sentence. [63]