Court Opinion

ID: 9425983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:22.13716+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:58.372292
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
dissenting.
The decision in Taylor v. Louisiana was applied retroactively to the trial and conviction in that case, not prospectively. I see no equities that permit retro-activity of the new ruling in Taylor and that disallow it here. My view has been that we should make our constitutional ruling retroactive in all cases if we make it retroactive in one. We can never know what differences, if any, would have resulted if a trial had been held pursuant to constitutional standards of procedural due process. I have recorded my dissents in other like situations, e. g., Stovall v. Denno, 388 U. S. 293, 302-303; Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618, 640; Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U. S. 719, 736; Whisman v. Georgia, 384 U. S. 895.* When Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, was decided we applied its ruling to three other cases in which *34we also granted certiorari, id., at 499. We had held 40 additional cases raising the same point; and when Miranda was decided we denied certiorari in each of them, 384 U. S. 1020-1025. I dissented from these denials saying:
“Mr. Justice Douglas is of the opinion that cer-tiorari should be granted in these cases and the judgments below reversed. He would remand the cases for a new trial, it being clear from the records that the principles announced in Miranda v. Arizona, ante, p. 436, were not applied. He sees no reason for discriminating against these petitioners, all of these cases having come here on direct review and being of the same vintage as Miranda v. Arizona.” Id., at 1020-1021.
Here, as in the case of Miranda, it is largely chance that we take for review one of several or many cases presenting the same issue. It is, I think, highly unfair to make the opinion in the case we take retroactive in that appellant’s case but not retroactive in others of the same vintage and pending here. If we sought equal justice for all we would either make all of our constitutional decisions retroactive or all of them prospective only.

 See also Tehan v. United States ex rel. Shott, 382 U. S. 406, 419; DeStefano v. Woods, 392 U. S. 631, 635; Fuller v. Alaska, 393 U. S. 80, 82; Desist v. United States, 394 U. S. 244, 255; Jenkins v. Delaware, 395 U. S. 213, 222; Mackey v. United States, 401 U. S. 667, 713; Adams v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 278, 286; Michigan v. Payne, 412 U. S. 47, 58; Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 433, 464.