Page:United States Reports, Volume 542.djvu/445

Syllabus

BEARD, SECRETARY, PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al. v. BANKS

CERTIORI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

After respondent's murder conviction and death sentence were upheld by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, this Court decided Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367, and McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, in which it held invalid capital sentencing schemes requiring juries to disregard mitigating factors not found unanimously. After respondent's state postconviction Mills claim was rejected by the State Supreme Court on the merits, he turned to the federal courts. Ultimately, the Third Circuit applied the analytical framework set forth in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, under which federal habeas petitioners may not avail themselves of new rules of constitutional criminal procedure outside two narrow exceptions; concluded that Mills did not announce a new rule and therefore could be applied retroactively; and granted respondent relief.

Held: Because Mills announced a new rule of constitutional criminal procedure that does not fall within either Teague exception, its rule cannot be applied retroactively. Pp. 411–420.

(a) Teague analysis involves a three step process requiring a court to determine when a defendant's conviction became final; whether, given the legal landscape at the time the conviction became final, the rule sought to be applied is actually new; and, if so, whether it falls within either of two exceptions to nonretroactivity. P. 411.

(b) Respondent's conviction became final before Mills was decided. The normal rule for determining a state conviction's finality for retro-activity review—when the availability of direct appeal to the state courts has been exhausted and the time for filing a certiorari petition has elapsed or a timely petition has been finally denied—applies here. That the Pennsylvania Supreme Court considered the merits of respondent's Mills claim on collateral review does not change his conviction's finality to a date subsequent to Mills. Pp. 411–413.

(c) Mills announced a new rule. In reaching its conclusion in Mills and McKoy, this Court relied on a line of cases beginning with Locket v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586. Lockett's general rule that the sentencer must be allowed to consider any mitigating evidence could be thought to support the conclusion in Mills and McKoy that capital sentencing schemes cannot require juries to disregard mitigating factors not found unanimously, but it did not mandate the Mills rule. Each of the cases relied