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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 12–547
_________________
LINDA METRISH, WARDEN, PETITIONER
v.
BURT LANCASTER
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the sixth circuit
[May 20, 2013]
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the
Court.
Burt Lancaster was convicted in Michigan state
court of first-degree murder and a related firearm offense. At the
time the crime was committed, Michigan’s intermediate
appellate court had repeatedly recognized “diminished
capacity” as a defense negating the
mens rea element
of first-degree murder. By the time of Lancaster’s trial and
conviction, however, the Michigan Supreme Court in
People v.
Carpenter, 464 Mich. 223, 627 N.W.2d 276 (2001), had
rejected the defense. Lancaster asserts that retroactive
application of the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision in
Carpenter denied him due process of law. On habeas review, a
federal court must assess a claim for relief under the demanding
standard set by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
of 1996 (AEDPA). Under that standard, Lancaster may gain relief
only if the state-court decision he assails “was contrary to,
or in- volved an unreasonable application of, clearly established
Federal law, as determined by [this] Court.” 28
U. S. C. §2254(d)(1). We hold that Lancaster’s
petition does not meet AEDPA’s requirement and that the
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit erred in
granting him federal habeas relief.
I
On April 23, 1993, Lancaster, a former police
officer with a long history of severe mental-health problems, shot
and killed his girlfriend in a shopping-plaza parking lot. At his
1994 jury trial in Michigan state court, Lancaster admitted that he
had killed his girlfriend but asserted insanity and
diminished-capacity defenses. Under then-prevailing Michigan Court
of Appeals precedent, a defendant who pleaded diminished capacity,
although he was legally sane, could “offer evidence of some
mental abnormality to negate the specific intent required to commit
a particular crime.”
Carpenter, 464 Mich., at 232, 627
N. W. 2d, at 280. If a defendant succeeded in showing that mental
illness prevented him from “form[ing] the specific state of
mind required as an essential element of a crime,” he could
“be convicted only of a lower grade of the offense not
requiring that particular mental element.”
Ibid.
(internal quotation marks omitted).
Apparently unpersuaded by Lancaster’s
defenses, the jury convicted him of first-degree murder, in
violation of Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. §750.316 (West
1991),[
1] and possessing a
firearm in the commission of a felony, in vio- lation of
§750.227b (West Cum. Supp. 2004). Lancaster later obtained
federal habeas relief from these convictions, however, because, in
conflict with
Batson v.
Kentucky,
476 U.S.
79 (1986), the prosecutor had exercised a race-based peremptory
challenge to remove a potential juror. See
Lancaster v.
Adams,
324 F.3d 423 (CA6 2003).
Lancaster was retried in 2005. By that time, the
Michigan Supreme Court had disapproved the “series of
[Michigan Court of Appeals] decisions” recognizing the
diminished-capacity defense.
Carpenter, 464 Mich., at 235,
627 N. W. 2d, at 282. In rejecting the defense, Michigan’s
high court observed that, in 1975, the Michigan Legislature had
enacted “a comprehensive statutory scheme concerning de-
fenses based on either mental illness or mental retardation.”
Id., at 236, 627 N. W. 2d, at 282. That scheme, the Michigan
Supreme Court concluded, “demonstrate[d] the
Legislature’s intent to preclude the use of
any
evidence of a defendant’s lack of mental capacity short of
legal insan- ity to avoid or reduce criminal responsibility.”
Ibid.
Although the murder with which Lancaster was
charged occurred several years before the Michigan Supreme
Court’s decision in
Carpenter, the judge presiding at
Lancaster’s second trial applied
Carpenter’s
holding and therefore disallowed renewal of Lancaster’s
diminished-capacity defense. Following a bench trial, Lancaster was
again convicted. The trial court imposed a sentence of life
imprisonment for the first-degree murder conviction and a
consecutive two-year sentence for the related firearm offense.
Lancaster appealed, unsuccessfully, to the
Michigan Court of Appeals. See App. to Pet. for Cert.
76a–78a. The appeals court rejected Lancaster’s
argument that retro- active application of
Carpenter to his
case violated his right to due process. “[D]ue process
concerns prevent retroactive application [of judicial decisions] in
some cases,” the court acknowledged, “especially
. . . where the decision is unforeseeable and has the
effect of changing existing law.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 77a.
But
Carpenter “did not involve a change in the
law,” the Court of Appeals reasoned, “because it
concerned an unambiguous statute that was interpreted by the
[Michigan] Supreme Court for the first time.” App. to Pet.
for Cert. 77a.
After the Michigan Supreme Court declined
review, Lancaster reasserted his due process claim in a federal
habeas petition filed under 28 U. S. C. §2254. The
District Court denied the petition, 735 F. Supp. 2d 750 (ED Mich.
2010), but it granted a certificate of appealability, see 28
U. S. C. §2253(c).
A divided panel of the Sixth Circuit reversed.
683 F.3d 740 (2012). The Michigan Supreme Court’s decision in
Carpenter was unforeseeable, the Court of Appeals major- ity
concluded, given (1) the Michigan Court of Appeals’
consistent recognition of the diminished-capacity defense; (2) the
Michigan Supreme Court’s repeated references to the defense
without casting a shadow of doubt on it; and (3) the inclusion of
the diminished-capacity defense in the Michigan State Bar’s
pattern jury instructions. 683 F. 3d, at 745–749. These
considerations persuaded the Sixth Circuit majority that, in
rejecting Lancaster’s due process claim, the Michigan Court
of Appeals had unreasonably applied clearly established federal
law.
Id., at 752–753. Accordingly, the Sixth Circuit
ruled that Lancaster was en- titled to a new trial at which he
could present his diminished-capacity defense.
Id., at 754.
Dissenting, Chief Judge Batchelder concluded that the
“Michigan Court of Appeals[’] denial of
Lancaster’s due process claim was reasonable . . .
because the diminished-capacity defense was not well-established in
Michigan and its elimination was, therefore, foreseeable.”
Id., at 755.
This Court granted certiorari. 568 U. S.
___ (2013).
II
To obtain federal habeas relief under
AEDPA’s strictures, Lancaster must establish that, in
rejecting his due process claim, the Michigan Court of Appeals
unreason- ably applied federal law clearly established in our
decisions. See 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1).[
2] This standard, we have explained, is
“difficult to meet”: To obtain habeas corpus relief
from a federal court, a state prisoner must show that the
challenged state-court ruling rested on “an error well
understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility
for fairminded disagreement.”
Harrington v.
Richter, 562 U. S. ___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at
12–13). To determine whether Lancaster has satisfied that
demanding standard, we consider first two of this Court’s key
decisions:
Bouie v.
City of Columbia,
378 U.S.
347 (1964), and
Rogers v.
Tennessee,
532 U.S.
451 (2001). We then consider whether the Michigan Court of
Appeals’ decision qualifies as an unreasonable application of
those decisions to the particular circumstances of
Lancaster’s case.[
3]
A
In
Bouie, the African-American
petitioners were convicted of trespass under South Carolina law
after they refused to comply with orders to leave a drug
store’s restaurant department, a facility reserved for white
customers. 378 U. S., at 348–349. This Court held that
the convictions violated the due process requirement that “a
criminal statute give fair warning of the conduct which it
prohibits.”
Id., at 350. The state statute under which
the petitioners were convicted, the Court emphasized, prohibited
“
entry upon the lands of another . . . after
notice from the owner or tenant prohibiting such entry.”
Id., at 349–350 (emphasis added and internal quotation
marks omitted). It was undisputed that the petitioners were invited
to enter the store and had received no notice that they were barred
from the restaurant area before they occupied booth seats.
Id., at 350. Nevertheless, the South Carolina Supreme Court
affirmed the petitioners’ convictions based on its prior
decision in
Charleston v.
Mitchell, 239 S. C.
376,
123 S.E.2d 512 (1961).
Bouie, 378 U. S., at 350,
n. 2. The
Mitchell decision, which the South Carolina
Supreme Court found dispositive, was rendered 21 months after the
petitioners’ arrest. 378 U. S., at 348, 350, n. 2.
Mitchell held that the trespass statute under which the
petitioners were convicted reached not only unauthorized entries;
it proscribed as well “the act of remaining on the premises
of another after receiving notice to leave.” 378 U. S.,
at 350.
We held that the Due Process Clause prohibited
Mitchell’s retroactive application to the
Bouie
petitioners. In so ruling, we stressed that
Mitchell’s
interpretation of the South Carolina trespass statute was
“clearly at variance with the statutory language” and
“ha[d] not the slightest support in prior South Carolina
decisions.” 378 U. S., at 356. Due process, we said,
does not countenance an “unforeseeable and retroactive
judicial expansion of narrow and precise statutory language.”
Id., at 352.
In
Rogers, the petitioner contested the
Tennessee Supreme Court’s retroactive abolition of the
common-law “year and a day rule.” 532 U. S., at
453. That rule barred a murder conviction “unless [the]
victim had died by the defendant’s act within a year and a
day of the act.”
Ibid. The victim in
Rogers had
died some 15 months after the petitioner stabbed him.
Id.,
at 454. We held that the Tennessee Supreme Court’s refusal to
adhere to the year and a day rule in the petitioner’s case
did not violate due process.
Id., at 466–467. The
“due process limitations on the retroactive application of
judicial decisions,” we explained, are not coextensive with
the limitations placed on legislatures by the Constitution’s
Ex Post Facto Clauses.
Id., at 459. See also
U. S. Const., Art. I, §9, cl. 3;
id.,
§10, cl. 1;
Calder v.
Bull, 3 Dall. 386,
390 (1798) (
seriatim opinion of Chase, J.) (describing four
categories of laws prohibited by the Constitution’s
Ex
Post Facto Clauses). Strictly applying
ex post facto
principles to judicial decisionmaking, we recognized, “would
place an unworkable and unacceptable restraint on normal judicial
processes and would be incompatible with the resolution of
uncertainty that marks any evolving legal system.”
Rogers, 532 U. S., at 461. “[J]udicial alteration
of a common law doctrine of criminal law,” we therefore held,
“violates the principle of fair warning, and hence must not
be given retroactive effect, only where [the alteration] is
‘unexpected and indefensible by reference to the law which
had been expressed prior to the conduct in
issue.’ ”
Id., at 462 (quoting
Bouie, 378 U. S., at 354).
Judged by this standard, we explained, the
retroactive abolition of the year and a day rule encountered no
constitutional impediment. First, the rule was “widely viewed
as an outdated relic of the common law” and had been
“legislatively or judicially abolished in the vast majority
of jurisdictions recently to have addressed the issue.”
Rogers, 532 U. S., at 462–463. Second, the rule
“had only the most tenuous foothold” in Tennessee,
having been mentioned in reported Tennessee decisions “only
three times, and each time in dicta.”
Id., at 464.
Abolishing the obsolete rule in Rogers’ case, we were
satisfied, was not “the sort of unfair and arbitrary judicial
action against which the Due Process Clause aims to protect.”
Id., at 466–467.
B
1
Does the Michigan Court of Appeals’
rejection of Lan- caster’s due process claim represent an
unreasonable ap- plication of the law we declared in
Bouie
and
Rogers? Addressing that question, we first summarize the
history of the diminished-capacity defense in Michigan.
The Michigan Court of Appeals first recognized
the defense in
People v.
Lynch, 47 Mich. App. 8, 208
N.W.2d 656 (1973). See
Carpenter, 464 Mich., at 233, 627
N. W. 2d, at 281. The defendant in
Lynch was
convicted of first-degree murder for starving her newborn daughter.
47 Mich. App., at 9, 208 N. W. 2d, at 656. On appeal, the defendant
challenged the trial court’s exclusion of psychiatric
testimony “bearing on [her] state of mind.”
Id.,
at 14, 208 N. W. 2d, at 659. She sought to introduce this evidence
not to show she was legally insane at the time of her child’s
death.[
4] Instead, her plea was
that she lacked the
mens rea necessary to commit
first-degree murder.
Ibid. Reversing the defendant’s
conviction and remanding for a new trial, the Michigan Court of
Appeals rejected the view “that mental capacity is an all or
nothing matter and that only insanity . . . negates
criminal intent.”
Id., at 20, 208 N. W. 2d,
at 662. Aligning itself with the “majority . . .
view,” the court permitted defendants to present relevant
psychiatric “testimony bearing on intent.”
Id.,
at 20–21, 208 N. W. 2d, at 662–663. See also
id., at 20, 208 N. W. 2d, at 662 (noting that “such
medical proof” is “sometimes called proof of diminished
or partial responsibility”).
In 1975, two years after the Michigan Court of
Appeals’ decision in
Lynch, the Michigan Legislature
enacted “a com- prehensive statutory scheme setting forth the
requirements for and the effects of asserting a defense based on
either mental illness or mental retardation.”
Carpenter, 464 Mich., at 226, 627 N. W. 2d, at 277. See also
1975 Mich. Pub. Acts pp. 384–388. That legislation, which
remained in effect at the time of the April 1993 shooting at issue
here, provided that “[a] person is legally insane if, as a
result of mental illness . . . or . . . mental
retardation . . . that person lacks substantial capacity
either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform
his con- duct to the requirements of law.”
Id., at 386
(codified as amended, Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. §768.21a(1) (West
2000)). The legislature required defendants in felony cases to
notify the prosecution and the court at least 30 days before trial
of their intent to assert an insanity defense. 1975 Mich. Pub. Acts
p. 385 (codified as amended, §768.20a(1)). Defendants raising
an insanity defense, the legislature further provided, must submit
to a court-ordered psychiatric examination.
Id., at 385
(codified as amended, §768.20a(2)).
The 1975 Act also introduced the verdict of
“guilty but mentally ill” for defendants who suffer
from mental illness but do not satisfy the legal definition of
insanity.
Id., at 387 (codified as amended, §768.36(1)
(West Cum. Supp. 2013)). The legislature provided for the
psychiatric evaluation and treatment of defendants found
“guilty but mentally ill” but did not exempt them from
the sentencing provisions applicable to defendants without mental
illness.
Id., at 387–388 (codified as amended,
§§768.36(3)–(4)).
Although the 1975 Act did not specifically
address the defense of diminished capacity, the Michigan Court of
Appeals ruled in 1978 that the defense “comes within th[e]
codified definition of legal insanity.”
People v.
Mangia-
pane, 85 Mich. App. 379, 395, 271 N.W.2d 240,
249. Therefore, the court held, a defendant claiming that he lacked
the “mental capacity to entertain the specific intent
required as an element of the crime with which he [was]
charged” had to comply with the statutory procedural
requirements applicable to insanity defenses, including the
requirements of pretrial notice and submission to court-ordered
examination.
Ibid.
Because the 1975 Act did not indicate which
party bears the burden of proof on the issue of insanity, Michigan
courts continued to apply the common-law burden-shifting framework
in effect at the time of the insanity defense’s codification.
See
People v.
McRunels, 237 Mich. App. 168, 172, 603
N.W.2d 95, 98 (1999). Under that framework, a criminal defendant
bore the initial burden of present- ing some evidence of insanity,
at which point the burden shifted to the prosecution to prove the
defendant’s sanity beyond a reasonable doubt. See
In re Certified Question, 425 Mich. 457, 465–466,
390 N.W.2d 620, 623–624 (1986);
People v.
Savoie, 419 Mich. 118, 126,
349 N.W.2d 139, 143 (1984). The Michigan Court of Appeals
applied the same burden-shifting framework to the
diminished-capacity defense. See
People v.
Denton,
138 Mich. App. 568, 571–572, 360 N.W.2d 245, 247–248
(1984).
In 1994, however, the Michigan Legislature
amended Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. §768.21a, the statute codifying
the insanity defense, to provide that the defendant bears
“the burden of proving the defense of insanity by a
preponderance of the evidence.” 1994 Mich. Pub. Acts p. 252
(codified at §768.21a(3)). In
Carpenter, the defendant
argued that the trial court had erred by applying the 1994 Act to
require him to establish his diminished-capacity defense by a
preponderance of the evidence. 464 Mich., at 225–226, 235,
627 N. W. 2d, at 277, 282. Rejecting this contention, the Michigan
Court of Appeals affirmed the defendant’s convictions. See
People v.
Carpenter, No. 204051, 1999 WL 33438799
(July 16, 1999) (
per curiam). Consistent with its decision
in
Mangiapane, the court held that the 1994 statutory
amendments applied to defendants raising the diminished-capacity
defense, and it further held that requiring defendants to establish
their diminished capacity by a preponderance of the evidence did
not unconstitutionally relieve the prosecution of its burden to
prove the
mens rea elements of a crime beyond a reasonable
doubt.
Id., at *1–*2.
In turn, the Michigan Supreme Court also
affirmed, but it did so on an entirely different ground. As earlier
stated, see
supra, at 2–3, the court concluded that in
no case could criminal defendants invoke the diminished-capacity
defense, for that defense was not encompassed within the
“comprehensive statutory scheme” the Michigan
Legislature had enacted to govern defenses based on mental illness
or retardation.
Carpenter, 464 Mich., at 236, 627 N. W. 2d,
at 282. Noting that previously it had “acknowledged in
passing the concept of the diminished capacity
defense,”[
5]
Michigan’s high court emphasized that it had “never
specifically authorized . . . use [of the defense] in
Michigan courts.”
Id., at 232–233, 627 N. W. 2d,
at 281. Squarely addressing the issue for the first time, the court
concluded that the diminished-capacity defense was incompatible
with the Michigan Legislature’s “conclusiv[e]
determin[ation]” of the circumstances under which
“mental incapacity can serve as a basis for relieving [a
defendant] from criminal responsibility.”
Id., at 237,
627 N. W. 2d, at 283. The statutory scheme enacted by the
Michigan Legislature, the court held, “created an all or
nothing insanity defense.”
Ibid. But cf.
supra,
at 9. A defendant who is “mentally ill or retarded yet not
legally insane,” the court explained, “may be found
‘guilty but mentally ill,’ ” but the
legislature had foreclosed the use of “evidence of mental
incapacity short of insanity . . . to avoid or reduce
criminal responsibility by negating specific intent.” 464
Mich., at 237, 627 N. W. 2d, at 283.
2
The Michigan Court of Appeals concluded that
applying
Carpenter retroactively to Lancaster’s case
did not violate due process, for
Carpenter “concerned
an unambiguous statute that was interpreted by the [Michigan]
Supreme Court for the first time.” App. to Pet. for Cert.
77a. As earlier Michigan Court of Appeals decisions indicate, see
supra, at 8–10, the bearing of the 1975 legislation on
the diminished-capacity defense may not have been apparent
pre-
Carpenter. But in light of our precedent and the his-
tory recounted above, see Part II–B–1,
supra,
the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision applying
Carpenter retroac- tively does not warrant disapprobation as
“an unreasonable application of . . . clearly
established [f]ederal law.” 28 U. S. C.
§2254(d)(1).
This case is a far cry from
Bouie, where,
unlike
Rogers, the Court held that the retroactive
application of a judicial decision violated due process. In
Bouie, the South Caro- lina Supreme Court had unexpectedly
expanded “narrow and precise statutory language” that,
as written, did not reach the petitioners’ conduct. 378
U. S., at 352. In
Carpenter, by contrast, the Michigan
Supreme Court rejected a diminished-capacity defense that the court
reasonably found to have no home in a comprehensive, on-point
statute enacted by the Michigan Legislature.
Carpenter thus
presents the inverse of the situation this Court confronted in
Bouie. Rather than broadening a statute that was narrow on
its face,
Carpenter disapproved lower court precedent
recognizing a defense Michigan’s high court found, on close
inspection, to lack statutory grounding. The situation we
confronted in
Bouie bears scant resemblance to this case,
and our resolution of that controversy hardly makes disallowance of
Lancaster’s diminished-capacity defense an unreasonable
reading of this Court’s law.
On the other hand, as the Sixth Circuit
recognized, see 683 F. 3d, at 749–751, Lancaster’s
argument against applying
Carpenter retroactively is
arguably less weak than the argument opposing retroactivity we
rejected in
Rogers. Unlike the year and a day rule at issue
in
Rogers, the diminished-capacity defense is not an
“outdated relic of the common law” widely rejected by
modern courts and legislators. 532 U. S., at 462. To the
contrary, the Model Penal Code sets out a version of the defense.
See ALI, Model Penal Code §4.02(1), pp. 216–217 (1985)
(“Evidence that the defendant suffered from a mental disease
or defect is admissible whenever it is relevant to prove that the
defendant did or did not have a state of mind that is an element of
the offense.”). See also
id., Comment 2, at 219
(“The Institute perceived no justification for a limitation
on evidence that may bear significantly on a determination of the
mental state of the defendant at the time of the commission of the
crime.”). And not long before the 1993 shooting at issue
here, the American Bar Association had approved criminal-justice
guidelines that (1) favored the admissibility of mental-health
evidence offered to ne- gate
mens rea, and (2) reported that
a majority of States allowed presentation of such evidence in at
least some circumstances. See ABA Criminal Justice Mental Health
Standards §7–6.2, and Commentary, pp. 347–349, and
n. 2 (1989). See also
Clark v.
Arizona,
548
U.S. 735, 800 (2006) (Kennedy, J., dissenting) (reporting that
in 2006, “a substantial majority of the States”
permitted the introduction of “mental-illness evidence to
negate
mens rea”).
Furthermore, the year and a day rule was
mentioned only three times in dicta in Tennessee reported
decisions.
Rogers, 532 U. S., at 464. The
diminished-capacity defense, by contrast, had been adhered to
repeatedly by the Michigan Court of Appeals. See
supra, at
8–10. It had also been “ ‘acknowledged in
passing’ ” in Michigan Supreme Court decisions and
was reflected in the Michigan State Bar’s pattern jury
instructions. 683 F. 3d, at 746–749 (quoting
Carpenter, 464 Mich., at 232, 627 N. W. 2d, at 281).
These considerations, however, are hardly
sufficient to warrant federal habeas relief under 28
U. S. C. §2254(d)(1)’s demanding standard. See
Williams v.
Taylor,
529
U.S. 362, 410 (2000) (“[A]n
unreasonable
application of federal law is different from an
incorrect
appli- cation of federal law.”).
Rogers did not hold
that a newly announced judicial rule may be applied retroactively
only if the rule it replaces was an “outdated relic”
rarely appearing in a jurisdiction’s case law. 532
U. S., at 462–467. Distinguishing
Rogers, a case
in which we
rejected a due process claim, thus does little
to bolster Lancaster’s argument that the Michigan Court of
Appeals’ decision unreasonably applied clearly established
federal law. See
Williams, 529 U. S., at 412 (the
phrase “clearly established [f]ederal law” in
§2254(d)(1) “refers to the
holdings
. . . of this Court’s decisions as of the time of
the relevant state-court decision” (emphasis added)).
This Court has never found a due process
violation in circumstances remotely resembling Lancaster’s
case—
i.e., where a state supreme court, squarely
addressing a particular issue for the first time, rejected a
consistent line of lower court decisions based on the supreme
court’s reasonable interpretation of the language of a
controlling statute. Fairminded jurists could conclude that a state
supreme court decision of that order is not “unexpected and
indefensible by reference to [existing] law.”
Rogers,
532 U. S., at 462 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Lancaster therefore is not entitled to federal habeas relief on his
due process claim.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is
Reversed.
