Almost two years after the United States Supreme Court decided Miller v. Alabama, the question of whether the case applies retroactively to convictions that became final before it was decided continues to be a thorny one for the nation’s courts. Miller held that under the Eighth Amendment a sentencing scheme that mandates life without parole for defendants less than eighteen years old at the time of their crimes is unconstitutional. Miller of course applies to all cases that were pending when it was decided as well as to all future cases. The question of retroactivity is whether the Miller rule applies to cases that became final before the decision was handed down. And that’s not just a theoretical question. After Miller was decided many defendants with old convictions filed post-conviction motions, challenging their sentences under the Eighth Amendment. See, e.g., Diatchenko v. Dist. Attorney for Suffolk Dist., 466 Mass. 655 (2013) (when Miller was decided--thirty years after the defendant’s conviction became final--the defendant filed a post-conviction motion challenging his sentence). In a nutshell, here’s how the retroactivity issue plays out. In the federal courts, the question of retroactivity is decided under what’s called the Teague test (so named for the seminal U.S. Supreme Court case). Under the Teague test, new constitutional rules are presumed to apply prospectively only, unless one of two exceptions applies. First, if the rule is substantive, it applies retroactively. And second, if the rule is procedural and it constitutes a watershed rule of criminal procedure, it applies [...]
Faculty Coordinators
