Court Opinion

ID: 9426887
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:10.397196+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:03.618963
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
concurring in the judgment.
In Williams v. United States, 401 U. S. 646, 665 (1971), I expressed the view that “a decision of this Court construing the Constitution should be applied retroactively to all cases involving criminal convictions not yet final at the time our decision is rendered.” For reasons persuasively stated at that time by Mr. Justice Harlan, Mackey v. United States, 401 U. S. 667, 675 (1971), I concluded that “cases still on direct review should receive full benefit of our supervening constitutional decisions.” Williams v. United States, supra, at 665. The Court’s more recent struggles with the problem of retroactivity, see, e. g., Adams v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 278 (1972); Michigan v. Payne, 412 U. S. 47 (1973), have done little to diminish “the inevitable costs and anomalies of the Court’s current approach.” Williams v. United States, supra, at 666. See Adams v. Illinois, supra, at 286 (Douglas, J., dissenting); *246Michigan v. Payne, supra, at 59 (Marshall, J., dissenting). I remain committed to the approach outlined in my opinion in Williams * Since this case is here on direct review, I concur in the Court’s holding that the rule announced in Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684 (1975), must be applied.
I would add, in view of Mr. Justice Blackmun’s concurring statement, ante, p. 245, that irrespective of the applicability of Patterson v. New York, ante, p. 197, the North Carolina Supreme Court remains free to construe its own State Constitution to give individuals the same protection that it afforded them in its original decision in this case. See Manson v. Brathwaite, ante, at 128-129, and n. 9 (Marshall, J., dissenting); United States v. Washington, 431 U. S. 181, 193-194 (1977) (Brennan, J., dissenting); Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U. S. 492, 499, and n. 6 (1977) (Marshall, J., dissenting).

As I noted in Williams, I think there are persuasive reasons to use the Court’s traditional retroactivity analysis to decide that issue in cases arising on habeas corpus or other collateral-review proceedings. 401 U. S., at 666.