Whorton v. Bockting
Headline: Court bars a new confrontation-evidence rule from being applied retroactively, preventing many prisoners with finalized convictions from getting relief and limiting habeas challenges.
Holding: The Court held that Crawford is not retroactive on collateral review under Teague, so defendants with convictions already final cannot obtain relief based on Crawford.
- Prevents final convictions from being reopened based on the new confrontation rule.
- Restricts habeas relief for defendants convicted before the new rule was announced.
- Reverses the Ninth Circuit panel that had applied the rule retroactively.
Summary
Background
Marvin Bockting was convicted in Nevada of sexually assaulting a young child after the child’s mother and a detective recounted the child’s out-of-court statements at trial because the child was too upset to testify. The Nevada statute allowed such statements for children under ten when a judge found them trustworthy. The Nevada Supreme Court upheld the conviction under the then-governing test, and Bockting sought federal habeas relief. While his federal appeal was pending, the Court announced a new rule about admitting testimonial out-of-court statements and one federal appeals panel held that this new rule applied retroactively to final convictions.
Reasoning
The core question was whether the Court’s new rule should apply to convictions that were already final. The Court used its established framework for retroactivity and concluded the new rule was indeed new because it overruled the prior governing test. Under that framework, a new rule can be applied later only if it is substantive or a rare “watershed” procedural rule necessary to prevent a large risk of inaccurate convictions and that alters bedrock procedural elements. The Court found the new confrontation rule procedural, not comparable to Gideon’s right-to-counsel rule, and did not meet the two strict watershed requirements. Therefore the rule is not retroactive.
Real world impact
Because the Court held the rule nonretroactive, defendants with convictions already final cannot rely on the new rule in collateral habeas proceedings. The decision reverses the federal appeals panel that had ordered relief and sends the case back to the lower court for proceedings consistent with this ruling. This ruling addresses retroactivity, not the full merits of the underlying conviction.
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