Opinion ID: 327931
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Retroactive Effect of Maze

Text: 5 In examining the effect of a Supreme Court decision that, in effect, declares the prior interpretation of a statute by a circuit in error, it is useful to note the characterization of the phrase the law of the circuit suggested by Judge Friendly in Travers, supra: 6 The Government urges in effect that Maze was indeed an overruling decision in that it changed 'the law of the circuit' indeed of several. But reliance on the quoted expression, of rather recent vintage, which is only a short-hand way of saying that the views of a court of appeals on an issue of federal law may remain undisturbed for a long time, can lead to dangerously wrong results. There are not eleven omnipresences of federal law brooding over various portions of the United States; in the long run there is only one, although some time may be needed to reveal it. (At 1174, n. 4.) 7 A similar view was expressed by this Court in Gates v. United States, 515 F.2d 73 at 78 (7th Cir. 1975), where in reference to a Supreme Court decision which settled a split among the circuits as to the meaning of a statute (rejecting the interpretation adopted by this Court), Judge Hastings stated: 8 The decision of the Court in (Warden v. Marrero, 417 U.S. 653, 94 S.Ct. 2532, 41 L.Ed.2d 383) interpreting the 1970 Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act was a declaration of what the law had meant from the date of its effectiveness onward. United States v. Estate of Donnelly, 397 U.S. 286, 294-295, 90 S.Ct. 1033, 25 L.Ed.2d 312 (1970). A statute does not mean one thing prior to the Supreme Court's interpretation and something entirely different afterwards. 9 Both Gates, supra, and Travers, supra, rely upon the opinion of this Court in Brough v. United States, 454 F.2d 370 (7th Cir. 1971). In Brough petitioner sought to attack his selective service conviction in a Section 2255 proceeding. Brough argued that a decision of the Supreme Court, which had been handed down after his appeal had been rejected, had shown the interpretation by this Court of the allegedly violated statute to be erroneous. In the opinion granting the relief sought, the Court stated: 10 To apply (Toussie v. United States, 397 U.S. 112, 90 S.Ct. 858, 25 L.Ed.2d 156) prospectively only would indicate that a federal statute duly enacted by Congress could mean one thing prior to the Supreme Court's interpretation and something entirely different afterwards. Here the relationship of § 3282 to §§ 462 and 453 had never been considered by the Supreme Court prior to Toussie. Nevertheless, a statute, under our system of separate powers of government, can have only one meaning. An interpretive rule, such as 32 C.F.R. § 1611.7(c), concerning that statute is either consistent with the statute or inconsistent. If inconsistent, as the Supreme Court found in Toussie, then the prior interpretation is, and always was, invalid. It necessarily follows that Toussie should have retroactive application in the case at bar. 11 In sum, the doctrine of retroactivity has been developed in cases dealing with criminal proceedings where new constitutional procedural protections had been announced. (Citations omitted.) 12 We conclude that the standards thus far developed for applying new constitutional protections prospectively only have no application in the instant appeal to the statutory interpretation by the Supreme Court. (Emphasis in the original, 454 F.2d at 372-373.) 13 Our evaluation of these cases leads us to accept Judge Friendly's position that Section 1341 has always had the meaning given it by the Supreme Court in Maze. Thus we hold with the Second Circuit that Maze must be applied retroactively. Consequently, the rationale of affirmance in petitioner's direct appeal was in error.