Court Opinion

ID: 9429914
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:28:16.246253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:22.115595
License: Public Domain

Justice Rehnquist,
dissenting.
I would be willing to join the result reached by the Court in this case if the majority were willing to adopt both aspects of the approach to retroactivity propounded by Justice Harlan in his concurrence in Mackey v. United States, 401 U. S. 667, 675 (1971). Under his approach, new constitutional rules prescribed by this Court for the conduct of criminal prosecutions would apply retroactively to all cases on direct appeal at the time the new rule was announced and, with narrow exceptions, would not apply in collateral proceedings challenging convictions that had become final before the new rule was announced. I will not attempt to summarize the justifica*67tions for this approach so thoughtfully articulated by Justice Harlan.
Because the Court apparently is not willing to adopt in entirety Justice Harlan’s bright-line distinction between direct appeals and collateral attacks, I join Justice White’s dissent, agreeing with him that there is little logic to the Court’s analysis and its rejection of the sound reasons given in Solem v. Stumes, 465 U. S. 638 (1984), for making Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U. S. 477 (1981), nonretroactive.*

While the results reached by the Court in this ease and in Solem happen to be the same as they would have been under Justice Harlan’s approach, the Court’s analysis in Solem is not the same as his approach. Only Justice Powell, concurring in the judgment in Solem, followed the Mackey concurrence. The rationale of Justice Harlan’s approach requires that the Court apply it in all cases, not just in those cases in which a majority favors the result it yields; and for now it does not appear that the Court is prepared to take this course.