Rogers v. Tennessee

2001-05-14

Headline: Court affirmed Tennessee’s abolition of the old “year and a day” rule, allowing prosecutors to treat deaths more than a year later as murder in states that similarly update common-law rules.

Holding: The Court held that Tennessee’s judicial abolition of the year-and-a-day rule and its application to Rogers did not violate the Due Process Clause because the change was not unexpected or indefensible by prior law.

Real World Impact:

Allows prosecutors to pursue murder when death occurs over a year after injury.
Permits state courts to update obsolete common-law rules and sometimes apply them retroactively.
Reduces protection for defendants when prior rules were dormant or clearly outdated.

Topics: murder timing rules, due process and fair warning, retroactive court rulings, year-and-a-day rule

Summary

Background

A man named Wilbert K. Rogers stabbed James Bowdery on May 6, 1994. Bowdery survived surgery but fell into a coma and died on August 7, 1995, about 15 months later. Tennessee’s criminal code does not mention the old common-law “year and a day” rule, which once barred murder convictions when death occurred more than a year and a day after the injury. The Tennessee Supreme Court concluded the rule was obsolete, abolished it under Tennessee common law, and applied that change to uphold Rogers’s murder conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court reviewed that retroactive application.

Reasoning

The main question was whether applying a new judicial rule after the crime violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of fair process. The Court relied on Bouie’s “fair warning” principle: due process forbids retroactive judicial changes that are “unexpected and indefensible” by prior law. It found the year-and-a-day rule to be an outdated relic, rarely enforced in Tennessee, absent from the statute, and already abandoned by many jurisdictions. Because the change was not an unforeseeable or arbitrary break with prior Tennessee law, the Court held its retroactive application did not violate Rogers’s due process rights.

Real world impact

The decision lets state courts abolish archaic common-law rules and in some cases apply those changes to past conduct if the change is not unforeseeable. Practically, prosecutors in states that eliminate the year-and-a-day rule may bring murder charges even when death occurs more than a year after injury. Defendants face narrower protection from retroactive judicial updates when the prior rule was dormant or plainly obsolete.

Dissents or concurrances

Several Justices dissented or partially dissented. Justice Scalia argued retroactive judicial change is equivalent to forbidden ex post facto lawmaking and violates fair warning. Justice Stevens emphasized the liberty risk from retroactive criminal-law changes. Justice Breyer agreed with the approach but thought Rogers lacked fair warning and joined parts of the dissent.