The Retroactivity Riddle

When the Supreme Court changes the law by extending the constitutional rights of criminal defendants, it normally does so by reversing the conviction of a particular appellant. But this raises a puzzling question: Does the decision also apply retroactively to other previously convicted prisoners?

The court has always said yes whenever it has tackled the question. But now it is painfully aware that hopeful convicts are flooding lower courts with appeals while critics flay judges for "freeing criminals." Last week, in a 7 to 2 decision, the court refused for the first time to give retroactive effect to a great Bill of Rights decision--Mapp v. Ohio (1961).

Sad Suspect. Mapp's purpose was to make state police observe the Fourth Amendment guarantee against "unreasonable searches and seizures." Until then, courts in about half the states admitted illegally seized evidence--typically, the fruit of searches made without lawful warrants. Thus in 1957, Cleveland police without a warrant invaded the home of a woman named Dollree Mapp on a tip that they would discover policy slips and a bombing suspect. Finding neither, the cops handcuffed Miss Mapp and searched on until they found "obscene material." She was charged with possession of it and was convicted. When the Supreme Court reversed Appellant Mapp's conviction in 1961, it ruled that from then on all state courts must exclude evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

In last week's key decision, the court confronted a conviction that unquestionably violated Mapp's "exclusionary rule." When New Orleans police arrested Burglary Suspect Victor Linkletter, they took his keys, entered his home without a warrant, and seized the evidence that got him a nine-year rap at hard labor. This occurred in 1958--one year after Miss Mapp's offense. But Linkletter's greatest misfortune was that his conviction became final 15 months before the Supreme Court's Mapp decision. Nonetheless, he appealed on the ground that Mapp should void his conviction.

Delighted Prosecutors. Speaking for the court, Justice Clark held that "the Constitution neither prohibits nor requires retrospective effect." The court is free to weigh retroactivity in terms of each decision's purpose. Decisions on coerced confessions and on the right to counsel, for example, aim to improve "the fairness of the trial--the very integrity of the fact-finding process." Such decisions have been made retroactive because they raise doubts about the actual guilt of the prisoners. By contrast, said Clark, prisoners convicted before Mapp are no less guilty for having been deprived of the exclusionary rule. Mapp's prime purpose was to deter lawless police action now and in the future. "That purpose will not at this late date be served by the wholesale release of the guilty victims."

In a lengthy (14 pages), sharp dissent, Justice Black (joined by Justice Douglas) attacked the majority's logic in freeing Dollree Mapp for an offense committed in 1957 while holding Victor Linkletter for an offense committed in 1958. The result, wrote Black, was "grossly invidious and unfair discrimination against Linkletter simply because he happened to be prosecuted in a state that was well up with its criminal docket." But the court stuck to its pragmatic rule that Mapp now applies only to current and future cases--thus delighting prosecutors across the country.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.