Hypothetical scenario:
What would now happen to Smith's conviction, if anything?
The standard is this, from Teague v. Lane:
If a case announces a “new rule,” an opinion by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said, the new rule will apply to all cases pending on direct review; but in most cases it will not apply to cases already final.
There are two exceptions:
First, a “new rule” will apply retroactively if it is “substantive,” meaning eliminating certain crimes (all sodomy cases, say, after Lawrence v. Texas) or protecting certain classes of people from certain punishments—as in the Court’s recent decisions that juvenile offenders and the intellectually disabled cannot be sentenced to death. The issue in Montgomery is whether the new rule against “true life” sentences for juvenile is that kind of “substantive” rule. The Miller Court said that states could no longer subject juvenile defendants to automatic sentences of life without parole; it didn’t say that a court could not sentence any juveniles to that penalty. Is that a “substantive” exclusion of juveniles—or a requirement of individualized sentencing that makes a mere “procedural” change to the law?
The second exception to Teague is for a “watershed rule of criminal procedure,” meaning one that the Court finds to be an “absolute prerequisite” to a fair and accurate trial. This is a terrific exception except that, well, there seemingly aren’t any “watershed cases.”
