Edwards v. Vannoy

• Decision Date: 17 May 2021
• Docket Number: No. 19-5807,19-5807
• Citation: 209 L.Ed.2d 651,141 S.Ct. 1547
• Parties: Thedrick EDWARDS, Petitioner v. Darrel VANNOY, Warden
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

141 S.Ct. 1547

209 L.Ed.2d 651

Thedrick EDWARDS, Petitioner

v.Darrel VANNOY, Warden

No. 19-5807

Supreme Court of the United States.

Argued December 2, 2020

Decided May 17, 2021

André Bélanger, Baton Rouge, LA, for the petitioner.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Murrill for the respondent.

Christopher G. Michel for the United States as amicus curiae, by special leave of the Court, supporting the respondent.

André Belanger, Counsel of Record, Yigal Bander, James P. Manasseh, Manasseh, Gill, Knipe & Belanger, P.L.C., Baton Rouge, LA, Collin P. Wedel, Andrew B. Talai, Summer A. Wall, Sidley Austin LLP, Los Angeles, CA, Jeffrey T. Green, Northwestern Supreme, Court Practicum, Chicago, IL, Naomi A. Igra, Matthew P. Henry, Benjamin Gillig, Sidley Austin LLP, San Francisco, CA, for petitioner.

Jeff Landry, Attorney General, Elizabeth Baker Murrill, Solicitor General, Counsel of Record, Shae McPhee, Deputy Solicitor General, Josiah M. Kollmeyer, Assistant Solicitor General, Louisiana Department of Justice, Baton Rouge, LA, Hillar Moore, District Attorney, Stacy Wright, Assistant District Attorney, East Baton Rouge Parish, Baton Rouge, LA, Jeffrey M. Harris, Consovoy McCarthy PLLC, Arlington, VA, for respondent.

Justice KAVANAUGH delivered the opinion of the Court.

Last Term in Ramos v. Louisiana , 590 U. S. ––––, 140 S.Ct. 1390, 206 L.Ed.2d 583 (2020), this Court held that a state jury must be unanimous to convict a criminal defendant of a serious offense. Ramos repudiated this Court's 1972 decision in Apodaca v. Oregon , 406 U.S. 404, 92 S.Ct. 1628, 32 L.Ed.2d 184, which had allowed non-unanimous juries in state criminal trials. The question in this case is whether the new rule of criminal procedure announced in Ramos applies retroactively to overturn final convictions on federal collateral review. Under this Court's retroactivity precedents, the answer is no.

This Court has repeatedly stated that a decision announcing a new rule of criminal procedure ordinarily does not apply retroactively on federal collateral review. See Teague v. Lane , 489 U.S. 288, 310, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989) (plurality opinion); see also Linkletter v. Walker , 381 U.S. 618, 639–640, and n. 20, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 14 L.Ed.2d 601 (1965). Indeed, in the 32 years since Teague underscored that principle, this Court has announced many important new rules of criminal procedure. But the Court has not applied any of those new rules retroactively on federal collateral review. See, e.g., Whorton v. Bockting , 549 U.S. 406, 421, 127 S.Ct. 1173, 167 L.Ed.2d 1 (2007) (Confrontation Clause rule recognized in Crawford v. Washington , 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), does not apply retroactively). And for decades before Teague , the Court also regularly declined to apply new rules retroactively, including on federal collateral review. See, e.g., DeStefano v. Woods , 392 U.S. 631, 635, 88 S.Ct. 2093, 20 L.Ed.2d 1308 (1968) (per curiam ) (jury-trial rule recognized in Duncan v. Louisiana , 391 U.S. 145, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968), does not apply retroactively).

In light of the Court's well-settled retroactivity doctrine, we conclude that the Ramos jury-unanimity rule likewise does not apply retroactively on federal collateral review. We therefore affirm the judgment of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

I

On the night of May 13, 2006, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Thedrick Edwards and an accomplice kidnapped Ryan Eaton, a student at LSU. As Eaton was getting out of his car, Edwards and his accomplice confronted Eaton at gunpoint and forced him back into the car. Edwards and his accomplice then jumped into the car with Eaton. They drove with Eaton to an ATM where they hoped to withdraw money using Eaton's card. When they discovered that Eaton did not have any money in his account, they drove to Eaton's apartment. Once there, they bound and blindfolded Eaton, rummaged through his apartment, and took some of his belongings to Eaton's car.

After they were back in the car, Edwards and his accomplice coerced Eaton into arranging a meeting with Eaton's girlfriend. They then drove to the girlfriend's apartment and, at gunpoint, forced Eaton to knock on the door. When Eaton's girlfriend opened the door, Edwards and his accomplice rushed inside. Both Edwards and his accomplice were armed, and Edwards's accomplice had his gun drawn. Edwards and his accomplice instructed Eaton, Eaton's girlfriend, and two other women in the apartment to lie on the floor. Edwards then raped one of the women. His accomplice raped another woman. As they left, they grabbed some personal property from the apartment. Edwards and his accomplice hurried back into Eaton's car and drove around the corner. They then abandoned the car and fled.

Two days later, Edwards and his accomplice confronted another man at gunpoint and forced him to withdraw money from an ATM.

Within a day of the second incident, the police collected substantial evidence implicating Edwards in both episodes. The police obtained warrants to search his residence and to arrest him. The day after the police executed the search warrant but before an arrest, Edwards turned himself in to the police and confessed to his crimes. The police videotaped Edwards's confession. (The video is part of the joint appendix. See supremecourt.gov/media/media.aspx.)

Edwards was indicted in Louisiana state court for armed robbery, kidnapping, and rape. Edwards pled not guilty and went to trial. Before trial, Edwards moved to suppress the videotaped confession on the ground that the confession was involuntary. The trial court denied the suppression motion.

At trial, the jury heard Edwards's confession and other evidence against him, including the testimony of eyewitnesses. The jury convicted Edwards of five counts of armed robbery, two counts of kidnapping, and one count of rape. At the time, Louisiana law permitted guilty verdicts if at least 10 of the 12 jurors found the defendant guilty. The jury convicted Edwards by an 11-to-1 vote on one of the armed robbery counts, the two kidnapping counts, and the rape count. The jury convicted Edwards by a 10-to-2 vote on the four remaining armed robbery counts.

At sentencing, the trial judge stated: "I can say without hesitation that this is the most egregious case that I've had before me." Record 1113. The judge sentenced Edwards to life imprisonment without parole. The Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed the conviction and sentence. In March 2011, Edwards's conviction became final on direct review.

After his conviction became final, Edwards applied for state post-conviction relief in the Louisiana courts. The Louisiana courts denied relief.

In 2015, Edwards filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U. S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana. He argued that the non-unanimous jury verdict violated his constitutional right to a unanimous jury. The District Court rejected that claim as foreclosed by this Court's 1972 decision in Apodaca v. Oregon , 406 U.S. 404, 92 S.Ct. 1628, 32 L.Ed.2d 184.

In Apodaca , this Court ruled that the Constitution does not require unanimous jury verdicts in state criminal trials. The Apodaca majority consisted of a plurality opinion by four Justices and an opinion concurring in the judgment by Justice Powell. In his opinion, Justice Powell acknowledged that the Sixth Amendment requires a unanimous jury in federal criminal trials. Johnson v. Louisiana , 406 U.S. 366, 371, 92 S.Ct. 1635, 32 L.Ed.2d 162 (1972). But in his view, the Fourteenth Amendment did not incorporate that right against the States, meaning that a unanimous jury was not constitutionally required in state criminal trials. Id. , at 373, 376–377, 92 S.Ct. 1635. In subsequent years, many federal and state courts viewed Justice Powell's opinion as the controlling opinion from Apodaca . See, e.g., Timbs v. Indiana , 586 U. S. ––––, ––––, n. 1, 139 S.Ct. 682, 687, n. 1, 203 L.Ed.2d 11 (2019) ; McDonald v. Chicago , 561 U.S. 742, 766, n. 14, 130 S.Ct. 3020, 177 L.Ed.2d 894 (2010).

In Edwards's case, the District Court likewise followed Justice Powell's opinion from Apodaca and concluded that a unanimous jury is not constitutionally required in state criminal trials. The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied a certificate of appealability. 2019 WL 8643258 (May 20, 2019). Edwards then petitioned for a writ of certiorari in this Court, arguing that the Constitution requires a unanimous jury in state criminal trials.

II

While Edwards's petition for certiorari was pending, this Court decided Ramos and rejected Justice Powell's opinion in Apodaca . See Ramos v. Louisiana , 590 U. S. ––––, 140 S.Ct. 1390, 206 L.Ed.2d 583 (2020) ; Apodaca v. Oregon , 406 U.S. 404, 92 S.Ct. 1628, 32 L.Ed.2d 184 (1972). The Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Sixth Amendment right to a unanimous jury against the States. Therefore, in state court as well as federal court, a jury must be unanimous to convict a defendant of a serious offense.¹

The Court's decision in Ramos directly affected Louisiana and Oregon, which were the only two States that still allowed non-unanimous juries. For those States, this Court's decision in Ramos immediately triggered a pressing question: Does Ramos apply retroactively to overturn final convictions on federal collateral review? We granted certiorari in Edwards's case to decide that question. 590 U. S. ––––, 140 S.Ct. 1390, 206 L.Ed.2d 583 (2020). We conclude that Ramos does not apply retroactively on federal collateral review.

A

A new rule of criminal procedure applies to cases on direct review, even if the defendant's trial has already concluded. See Griffith v. Kentucky , 479 U.S. 314, 328, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987). But under the habeas corpus statute as interpreted by this Court, a new rule of criminal procedure ordinarily does not apply retroactively to overturn final convictions on federal collatera...