Court Opinion

ID: 9424022
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:09:57.709119+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:47.703100
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Black,
with whom Mr. Justice Douglas joins,
dissenting.
I do not understand why there should be any discussion of the retroactivity of McCarthy v. United States, ante, p. 459, a decision of this Court this Term interpreting a Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure. If the rule’s relevant portions were in full force and effect when petitioner’s guilty plea was entered in 1954, then it should of course be enforced in this case; if not, the McCarthy decision simply has no application here at all. For this reason and for all others set out in my dissenting opinion in Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618, 640 (1965), I would reverse the judgment below and order that petitioner’s guilty plea be vacated so that he may have an opportunity to plead again.