Abstract
The validity of Justice Harlan's contention that retroactivity must be rethought is becoming increasingly evident, and it seems likely that extensive reevaluation of the doctrine will soon be necessary. The past six years have been marked by well over a dozen Supreme Court decisions addressed to the question of the retroactive or prospective effect to be given prior constitutional rulings in the area of criminal procedure. Rarely has an important constitutional doctrine achieved such full-blown proportions so quickly, yet several members of the Court would now vote to reject it and start anew. Linkletter v. Walkers was the landmark decision in which the retroactivity doctrine was first enunciated. In a two-fold ruling the Court first decided that nonretroactive effect was compatible with constitutional interpretation in cases challenging criminal convictions, and secondly, set forth a balancing equation designed to test the retroactivity issue in each case in which it should arise. The contention of this article is that fundamental responsibility for the operational difficulties of the equation lies in the failure of the Court to debate openly the crucial issue in the Linkletter case. In concluding that nonretroactivity was a constitutionally permissible tool, the Court failed to discuss the values which were really at stake and thus was able to present a formula apparently capable of resolving any problems associated with the disposition of retroactivity issues. The real issue, obscured in Linkletter, was the Supreme Court's newly adopted role in supervising the overall operations of the state and federal criminal justice systems. Retroactivity has become a significant factor in defining this role.
First Page
1
Recommended Citation
Pierce B. Hasler,
Retroactivity Rethought: The Hidden Costs,
24
Me. L. Rev.
1
(1972).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/mlr/vol24/iss1/3
Included in
Constitutional Law Commons, Criminal Law Commons, Supreme Court of the United States Commons