Court Opinion

ID: 9424512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:11:48.619545+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:50.715261
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice White,
with whom The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Stewart, and Mr. Justice Blackmun join, dissenting.
I
None of Angelinas rights under the Fifth Amendment were violated when this forfeiture proceeding was begun and concluded in the District Court. In violation of the Internal Revenue Code, Angelini had failed to register as a gambler and to pay the related gambling tax; he *731was subject to criminal penalties for the default; and United States v. Kahriger, 345 U. S. 22 (1953), and Lewis v. United States, 348 U. S. 419 (1955), had specifically held that the statutory obligation to file and pay was not compulsory self-incrimination proscribed by the Fifth Amendment. The Amendment at that time afforded Angelini no defense either to a criminal charge for refusal to register and pay or to a forfeiture proceeding based on the same offenses.
After affirmance of the forfeiture judgment in the Court of Appeals, however, our decisions in Marchetti v. United States, 390 U. S. 39 (1968), and Grosso v. United States, 390 U. S. 62 (1968), intervened. Kahriger and Lewis were overruled. Obligatory filing and payment were held violative of the Fifth Amendment. It followed that failure to comply with the statute thereafter could not be punished by law. Angelini now claims the benefit of the new constitutional doctrine announced by Marchetti-Grosso.
Of course, we are not free to set aside convictions or forfeitures at will. The forfeiture judgment imposed here must stand unless the Constitution otherwise commands. More specifically, we are empowered to set aside the judgment only if we are constitutionally compelled to give Marchetti and Grosso retroactive application.
It is now firmly settled that the Constitution does not require every new interpretation of the Bill of Rights to be retrospectively applied. The cases from Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618 (1965), to Williams v. United States, ante, p. 646, prove at least this much. They also squarely hold that retroactive sweep of newly announced constitutional doctrine is not required where violation of that doctrine raises no substantial doubts about the factual accuracy of guilty verdicts rendered under previous law. But if the new rule is such that *732its nonobservance in the past casts substantial doubt on the reliability of prior convictions, all prior verdicts involving such a violation must be set aside regardless of countervailing arguments about the impact on state and federal interests in maintaining criminal judgments.
So far, the Court and I are apparently in complete agreement. But I cannot join the Court in its disposition of this case. The majority’s reasoning is simple: If we are required to apply retroactively any new constitutional interpretation casting serious doubt on the accuracy of prior verdicts, we are also compelled to set aside convictions or penalties based on conduct that subsequent decisions — expressly contrary to prior decisions of this Court — hold to be constitutionally protected. If verdicts may not stand where the new rule casts doubt on the integrity of prior trials, surely, it is argued, a judgment such as the one against Angelini must be set aside because there should never have been a trial at all.
But this approach is no more than a beguiling ver-balism. There is no doubt in this case that Angelini failed to register, file his returns, and pay his tax; nor is there any suggestion that either Angelini’s conviction or the instant forfeiture proceedings were in any way unfair or departed from controlling norms. The argument here is not that new constitutional insight raises doubts whether Angelini committed the acts giving rise to the forfeiture or the accuracy of the procedures employed in determining whether he acted as charged; rather, it is that the forfeiture judgment must be set aside because based on conduct which Marchetti-Grosso have declared to be constitutionally immune. As An-gelini would have it, complete retroactivity must always be given to decisions invalidating on constitutional grounds any substantive criminal statute. Any statute *733defining criminal conduct, if declared unconstitutional, is void ab initio.
I fail to find any such command, express or implied, in the Fifth Amendment or in any other provision of the Constitution. Nor does the Court care to explain the result it reaches. It does not embrace the theory that the Constitution must be understood always to have meant what the Court now says it means. It does not deny that this Court makes constitutional law. Nor does it assert that prior interpretations of the Constitution were never valid law and must always be disregarded. But apparently a statute making certain conduct criminal, once invalidated here, was never the law although this Court formerly held that it was and had regularly affirmed convictions under it over explicit constitutional challenge. I am not prepared to agree with this proposition.
II
Had Angelini registered and paid the federal tax and then been tried prior to Marchetti-Grosso for violating federal interstate gambling laws or state laws making gambling a crime, the admissions contained in his registration and gambling tax returns would have been relevant and presumptively reliable evidence of guilt, properly admissible under Kahriger and Lewis. And if after Marchetti-Grosso, Angelini had complained about the use of this evidence, Tehan v. Shott, 382 U. S. 406 (1966), and Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U. S. 719, 732 (1966), would surely dictate denial of relief whether Angelini came here on direct review of his conviction or from denial of collateral relief.
If we would not upset a conviction where Angelini registered and filed tax returns and these filed statements were used against him in a criminal prosecution, *734neither should we implement the Marchetti-Grosso reading of the Fifth Amendment by applying it where there has been no self-incrimination but a conviction or forfeiture for failure to register or pay the tax. In Mackey v. United States, ante, p. 667, it seems to me that a major predicate for permitting Mackey’s gambling tax returns to be used against him in a criminal prosecution was that those returns were not compelled admissions— that Mackey’s Fifth Amendment rights were not violated by the statutory requirement to register, file returns, and pay the gambling tax, for that issue was controlled by Kahriger and Lewis, not by Marchetti and Grosso. Angelini is in no better position than was Mackey to argue successfully that the registration statute was invalid when he decided to ignore it or that the statute called for “compelled” incriminating admissions. To urge that the integrity of the forfeiture proceeding against Angelini is destroyed because Mar-chetti-Grosso forbade any forfeitures at all is merely to reassert or assume that those decisions must be given retroactive effect. In terms of implementing the purpose of Marchetti and Grosso and the Fifth Amendment, I see no difference between convictions or forfeitures for noncompliance with the statute and those obtained by using the fruits of compliance with that same statute. Angelini’s funds were validly and accurately forfeited for failing to file his returns contrary to a statute that this Court had upheld as consistent with the Fifth Amendment. Relief to Angelini would merely remove retroactively a burden on conduct, which when judged by current cases, was an exercise of his self-incrimination privilege, but which when it occurred and under the then-controlling law was a breach of duty he was legally bound to perform.
*735III
It is true that if this judgment of forfeiture were affirmed the law would countenance a penalty for past criminal acts that are wholly innocent under the current law. It is also true that when the law no longer censures certain acts, the Government surrenders its interest in deterring prior delinquents or the public generally from engaging in a particular form of conduct that once was criminal but is now unobjectionable behavior. But there remains the interest in maintaining the rule of law and in demonstrating that those who defy the law do not do so with impunity. Clearly, the Constitution does not require the authorities to vindicate this interest upon the demise of a criminal law and some of us may think it unwise to do so. But is the interest so insubstantial that the Constitution forbids a State or the Federal Government from continuing to punish behavior which was once but is not now criminal conduct? I think not.
The question is an old one for both courts and legislatures and my answer is not novel, either in the context of the repeal of a criminal statute or in the context of a court decision overruling a prior case with respect to the constitutionality of a statute.
The common law never attached complete retrospec-tivity to the repeal of a criminal statute. Absent statutory guidance, the judge-made rule was that those whose convictions had been finally affirmed when repeal took place received no benefit from the new rule; but repeal of a statute abated pending prosecutions and required reversal of convictions still on appeal when the law was changed. United States v. Chambers, 291 U. S. 217 (1934); Massey v. United States, 291 U. S. 608 (1934); United States v. Tynen, 11 Wall. 88 (1871); Yeaton v. United States, 5 Cranch 281 (1809); In re Kline, 70 *736Ohio St. 25, 70 N. E. 511 (1904); State v. Addington, 2 Bailey (S. C.) 516 (1831); Ex parte Andres, 91 Tex. Cr. R. 93, 237 S. W. 283 (1922); see also 1 Sutherland, Statutory Construction § 2046 (1943 ed.).
The courts nevertheless honored provisions in repealing statutes saving prosecutions and forfeitures for conduct committed while the former statute was in effect. The Irresistible, 7 Wheat. 551 (1822); 1 Sutherland, supra, § 2050. Moreover, in 1871, Congress enacted the following general statute which, among other things, saved ongoing criminal prosecutions from abatement following repeal of a penal statute:
“[T]he repeal of any statute shall not have the effect to release or extinguish any penalty, forfeiture, or liability incurred under such statute, unless the repealing act shall so expressly provide, and such statute shall be treated as still remaining in force for the purpose of sustaining any proper action or prosecution for the enforcement of such penalty, forfeiture, or liability.” 16 Stat. 432.
This section was carried forward and eventually broadened by amendment “to provide that the expiration of a temporary statute shall not have the effect of preventing prosecution of an offense committed under the temporary statute” by making “applicable to violations of temporary statutes the same rule that is now in effect in respect to offenses against statutes that have been repealed.” H. R. Rep. No. 261, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1943).1 Today, 46 States, as well as the Federal Gov*737ernment, make provision for saving pending criminal prosecutions from the repeal of the underlying statute.2 The prevailing legislative policy and positive law thus *738is that neither the repeal of a statute nor the expiration of a temporary act shall release or extinguish penalties, forfeitures, or liabilities incurred under statutes no longer in force. Conduct perfectly innocent under current law is nevertheless punishable if it occurred while a valid criminal statute proscribed it. The courts have *739regularly enforced 1 U. S. C. § 109, the federal saving statute, never suggesting that it was constitutionally infirm or even fundamentally unfair and frankly recognizing that the Government is free to maintain the integrity of the law by insisting that those who violate it suffer the consequences.3
*740Of course, the case before us does not involve the legislative repeal of an existing criminal statute but a construction of the Fifth Amendment by this Court contrary to past interpretations of that amendment and having the effect of barring enforcement of 26 U. S. C. § 7203 against those refusing to register as gamblers and pay the gambling tax. As to those persons, at least those failing to file and pay after January 29, 1968, 26 U. S. C. § 7203 may not constitutionally be enforced. Does such a declaration concerning a law which this Court had previously validated mean that the law was to this extent void from the moment it was enacted? If so, it would appear that not only should pending prosecutions abate, but also all previous convictions should be vulnerable to *741habeas corpus petitions alleging that petitioners are in custody pursuant to an unconstitutional law. Or should the statute validated by prior Court decisions be considered a valid law until the date of its invalidation and its demise treated as Congress treats the repeal of a statute?
Neither of these alternatives has found unqualified support in this Court. There are statements in the cases indicating that an unconstitutional law must be treated as having no effect whatsoever from the very date of its enactment. Chicago, I. & L. R. Co. v. Hackett, 228 U. S. 559 (1913); Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U. S. 425 (1886); Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371, 376 (1880).4 But this view has not prevailed. In Gelpcke v. City of Dubuque, 1 Wall. 175, 206 (1864), the city issued bonds pursuant to legislative authorization that the Iowa Supreme Court had upheld as constitutional. The same court then overruled itself and held the statutory authorization to be void. This Court refused to allow the state court to give retroactive effect to the overruling decision by invalidating the bonds, saying that the legislature could not impair the obligation of an existing contract and that the same principle applies "where there is a change of judicial decision as to the constitutional power of the legislature to enact the law. To this rule, thus enlarged, we adhere. It is the law of this court.” 5
*742Great Northern R. Co. v. Sunburst Oil & Refining Co., 287 U. S. 358 (1932),6 was another indication that the Court clearly rejected any all-inclusive principle of retroactivity for court decisions declarative of a change in the law. In Chicot County Drainage District v. Baxter State Bank, 308 U. S. 371 (1940), this Court was faced with the question whether retroactive effect should be accorded an earlier decision declaring a federal statute unconstitutional, Ashton v. Cameron County District, *743298 U. S. 513 (1936). Referring expressly to Norton, Chief Justice Hughes stated that the broad language in that opinion “must be taken with qualifications.” 308 U. S., at 374. As he asserted:
“The actual existence of a statute, prior to [a determination of unconstitutionality], is an operative fact and may have consequences which cannot justly be ignored. The past cannot always be erased by a new judicial declaration. The effect of the subsequent ruling as to invalidity may have to be considered in various aspects, — with respect to particular relations, individual and corporate, and particular conduct, private and official. Questions of rights claimed to have become vested, of status, of prior determinations deemed to have finality and acted upon accordingly, of public policy in the light of the nature both of the statute and of its previous application, demand examination. These questions are among the most difficult of those which have engaged the attention of courts, state and federal, and it is manifest from numerous decisions that an all-inclusive statement of a principle of absolute retroactive invalidity cannot be justified.” Ibid.
This clear rejection of the idea that every decision declaring a statute unconstitutional had retroactive sweep was one of the underpinnings of Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618, 622-629 (1965), and has been invoked since Linkletter.7 It was against this background that *744this Court has fashioned rules to deal with the impact on pending and closed criminal cases of decisions that overruled prior decisions construing the various provisions of the Bill of Rights. And it is against this background that I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

 In a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives in support of this broadening amendment, Attorney General Biddle referred to the common-law rule as a “deficiency [which] has been cured as concerns offenses cognizable under a statute that has been expressly repealed, as distinguished from one that expires by its own terms.” See H. R. Rep. No. 261, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1943). He then indicated that there was doubt about whether *737the general saving provision identical to that enacted in 1871 (by then 1 U. S. C. §29 (1940 ed.)) applied to violations of temporary statutes that expired before prosecutions could be concluded. The Attorney General next stated that a number of wartime statutes of a temporary nature had been enacted, and that to forestall questions about their enforceability after expiration “it appears desirable to enact legislation which would expressly permit prosecutions after the lapse of such temporary statutes for violations committed while the act is in force.” H. R. Rep. No. 261, supra, at 2.

 The 46 States are: Alabama: Ala. Code, Tit. 1, § 11 (1958); Alaska: Alaska Stat. § 01.05.021 (1962); Arizona: Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 1-246, 1-247 (1956); see also id., §§ 1-244,1-249; Arkansas: Ark. Stat. Ann. § 1-103 (1947); California: Cal. Govt. Code § 9608 (1966); Colorado: Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 135-1-7,135-4r-7 (1963); Connecticut: Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev. § 54-194 (1968); Florida: Fla. Const., Art. 10, § 9; Georgia: Ga. Code Ann. § 26-103 (1953); Hawaii: Hawaii Rev. Laws § 1-11 (1968); Idaho: Idaho Code § 67-513 (1947); Illinois: Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 131, § 4 (1969); Indiana: Ind. Ann. Stat. §§ 1-303, 1-307 (1967); Iowa: Iowa Code § 4.1 (1) (1971); Kansas: Kan. Stat. Ann. § 77-201 (1969); Kentucky: Ky. Rev. Stat. § 446.110 (1962); Louisiana: La. Rev. Stat. § 24:171 (1950); Maine: Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 1, § 302 (Supp. 1970-1971); Maryland: Md. Ann. Code, Art. 1, § 3 (1957); Massachusetts: Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., c. 4, § 6 (1966); Michigan: Mich. Comp. Laws § 8.4a (1948); Minnesota: Minn. Stat. § 645.35 (1967); Mississippi: Miss. Code Ann. § 2608 (1957); Missouri: Mo. Rev. Stat. § 1.160 (1969); Montana: Mont. Rev. Codes Ann. § 43-514 (1961); Nebraska: Neb. Rev. Stat. §49-301 (1968); Nevada: Nev. Rev. Stat. § 169.235 (1968); New Hampshire: N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. §21:38 (1955); New Jersey: N. J. Rev. Stat. § 1:1-15 (1937); New Mexico: N. M. Const., Art. 4, § 33; New York: N. Y. Gen. Constr. Law § 94 (1951); North Carolina: N. C. Gen. Stat. §§ 164-4, 164-5 (1964); North Dakota: N. D. Cent. Code § 1-02-17 (1959) (saves penalties, fines, liabilities, or forfeitures incurred under a repealed statute and provides that the repealed act remains in force for the purpose of enforcing such fines, penalties, or forfeitures; however, unless the repealing statute expressly provides otherwise, in cases tried both before and after the repeal, the repealing statute has the effect *738of “extinguishing any jail or prison sentence that may be, or that has been, imposed by reason of said law . . . .” Ibid.; but see In re Chambers, 69 N. D. 309, 285 N. W. 862 (1939), where the court held that insofar as § 1-02-17 purported to extinguish prison sentences imposed after trial which preceded the effective date of the repealing statute, the section was unconstitutional under N. D. Const. § 76, which vests power to pardon in the Governor and the board of pardons); Ohio: Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 1.20 (1969); Oklahoma: Olda. Const., Art. 5, § 54; Oregon: Ore. Rev. Stat. § 161.040 (1967); Rhode Island: R. I. Gen. Laws Ann. § 43-3-23 (1956); South Dakota: S. D. Compiled Laws Ann. § 2-14-18 (1967); Tennessee: Tenn. Code Ann. § 1-301 (1955); Utah: Utah Code Ann. § 68-3-5 (1968); Vermont: Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 1, § 214 (Supp. 1970); Virginia: Va. Code Ann. § 1-16 (1950); Washington: Wash. Rev. Code § 10.01.040 (1956); West Virginia: W. Va. Code Ann. § 2-2-8 (1966); Wisconsin: Wise. Stat. § 990.04 (1967); Wyoming: Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 8-21 (1957).
Of the four other States, Delaware has a provision but it applies only to save prosecutions for any offenses committed under laws repealed when the State’s comprehensive Code of 1953 was adopted. Del. Code Ann., Tit. 1, § 104 (1953). See also Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 46, § 596 (1969), a general saving provision applicable only to repeal of “civil provisions.” However, under Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 46, § 582, if the repeal of a penal statute is accompanied by a re-enactment at the same time of the repealed law’s provisions in “substantially the same terms,” a prosecution will be saved. See Commonwealth v. Davis, 4 Pa. D. & C. 2d 182 (1954). Tex. Pen. Code, Art. 14.16 (1952), provides: “The repeal of a law where the repealing statute substitutes no other penalty will exempt from punishment all persons who may have violated such repealed law, unless it be otherwise declared in the repeahng statute.” But Tex. Pen. Code, Art. 17.19 saves prosecutions for offenses committed under statutes repealed when the new Penal Code took effect. South Carolina apparently has no general saving provision applicable to criminal prosecutions.

 United States v. Reisinger, 128 U. S. 398 (1888) (enforcing one of the predecessors of 1 U. S. C. § 109); Allen v. Grand Central Aircraft Co., 347 U. S. 535, 553-555 (1954); Moorehead v. Hunter, 198 F. 2d 52 (CA10 1952); Lovely v. United States, 175 F. 2d 312, 316-318 (CA4 1949); Rehberg v. United States, 174 F. 2d 121 (CA5 1949); Ladner v. United States, 168 F. 2d 771 (CA5 1948). 1 Sutherland, Statutory Construction §2048 (1943 ed.). See also Fleming v. Mohawk Wrecking & Lumber Co., 331 U. S. 111, 119 (1947); Duffel v. United States, 95 U. S. App. D. C. 242, 221 F. 2d 523 (1954); cf. United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U. S. 304, 331-333 (1936); United States v. Hark, 320 U. S. 531 (1944) (reversing an order quashing an indictment charging violation of maximum price regulation that had been revoked prior to the date the indictment was returned on the ground that the statute under which the regulation was issued remained in effect after revocation).
In United States v. Chambers, 291 U. S. 217 (1934), this Court was faced with the question of what effect repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment by the Twenty-first Amendment on December 5, 1933, would have on criminal prosecutions continued or begun under the National Prohibition Act after the repealing amendment had been ratified. In an opinion by Chief Justice Hughes, the Court applied the common-law rule of Tynen and Yeaton and held that pending prosecutions, including those still on direct review, would be abated. The question of whether the Twenty-first Amendment had any effect on convictions which had become final before the date of ratification was specifically reserved. 291 U. S., at 226. Thereafter, the courts of appeals held that defendants whose convictions had become final before the Twenty-first Amendment was ratified had to serve their sentences. United States ex rel. Randall v. United States Marshal, 143 F. 2d 830 (CA2 1944); Odekirk v. Ryan, 85 F. 2d 313 (CA6 1936); United States ex rel. Cheramie v. Dutton, 74 F. 2d 740 (CA5 1935), cert. denied sub nom. United States ex rel. Cheramie v. Freudenstein, 295 U. S. 733 (1935); Rives v. O’Hearne, 64 App. D. C. 48, 73 F. 2d 984 (1934); Moss v. United States, 72 F. 2d 30 (CA4 1934); The Helen, 72 F. 2d 772 *740(CA3 1934) (common-law rule of Chambers applied to a forfeiture); United States ex rel. Benton v. Hill, 72 F. 2d 826 (CA3 1934); United States ex rel. Voorhees v. Hill, 72 F. 2d 826 (CA3 1934); United States ex rel. Nerbonne v. Hill, 70 F. 2d 1006 (CA3 1934).
In Chambers, the Court rejected the Government’s suggestion that the general saving provision' — the predecessor of § 109 — supported the continuation of prosecutions pending when the repealing amendment was ratified. The saving statute was discussed as passed in recognition of the principle that unless a repealed law is “continued in force by competent authority,” 291 U. S., at 224, repeal halts enforcement. Congress had the power to propose the Twenty-first Amendment so as to include a saving provision, but not to vary the amendment’s terms once it was adopted. Since as adopted the amendment gave Congress no power to extend the operation of the National Prohibition Act, which was deprived of its force by the action of the people in repealing the Eighteenth Amendment, the Court concluded that the general saving provision had no application. Ibid.
There can be no doubt that a Court which had just decided Great Northern R. Co. v. Sunburst Oil & Refining Co., 287 U. S. 358 (1932), would consider the judiciary as “competent authority” to fashion a rule that a statute, though changed by • interpretation, nevertheless remained in force and applicable to events that transpired before the change occurred. See nn. 6-7, infra, and accompanying text.

 In Norton, Mr. Justice Field declared:
“An unconstitutional act is not a law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is, in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed.” 118 U. S., at 442.

 The Court so held over the dissent of Mr. Justice Miller who said:
“The Supreme Court of Iowa is not the first or the only court which has changed its rulings on questions as important as the one now presented. I understand the doctrine to be in such *742cases, not that the law is changed, but that it was always the same as expounded by the later decision, and that the former decision was not, and never had been, the law, and is overruled for that very reason. The decision of this court contravenes this principle, and holds that the decision of the court makes the law, and in fact, that the same statute or constitution means one thing in 1853, and another thing in 1859.” 1 Wall., at 211.
See also Loeb v. Columbia Township Trustees, 179 U. S. 472, 492 (1900); Douglass v. County of Pike, 101 U. S. 677, 687 (1880).

 Sunburst rejected the claim that a state court could not constitutionally refuse to make its ruling retroactive. Mr. Justice Cardozo held:
“A state in defining the limits of adherence to precedent may make a choice for itself between the principle of forward operation and that of relation backward. It may say that decisions of its highest court, though later overruled, are law none the less for intermediate transactions. Indeed there are cases intimating, too broadly, that it must give them that effect; but never has doubt been expressed that it may so treat them if it pleases, whenever injustice or hardship will thereby be averted. On the other hand, it may hold to the ancient dogma that the law declared by its courts had a Platonic or ideal existence before the act of declaration, in which event the discredited declaration will be viewed as if it had never been, and the reconsidered declaration as law from the beginning. The alternative is the same whether the subject of the new decision is common law or statute. The choice for any state may be determined by the juristic philosophy of the judges of her courts, their conceptions of law, its origin and nature.” 287 U. S. 358, at 364-365 (citations omitted, footnotes omitted, emphasis in original).

 See City of Phoenix v. Kolodziejski, 399 U. S. 204, 213-215 (1970); Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395 U. S. 701, 706 (1969); cf. Tehan v. Shott, 382 U. S. 406 (1966), where the prosecutor’s comment about the defendant’s failure to take the stand was authorized, when made, by Art. I, § 10, of the Constitution of Ohio and Ohio Rev. Code § 2945.43.