Metrish v. Lancaster

• Decision Date: 20 May 2013
• Docket Number: No. 12–547.,12–547.
• Citation: 569 U.S. 351,185 L.Ed.2d 988,133 S.Ct. 1781
• Parties: Linda METRISH, Warden, Petitioner v. Burt LANCASTER.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

569 U.S. 351

133 S.Ct. 1781

185 L.Ed.2d 988

Linda METRISH, Warden, Petitioner

v.Burt LANCASTER.

No. 12–547.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued April 24, 2013.

Decided May 20, 2013.

John J. Bursch, Solicitor General, Lansing, MI, for Petitioner.

Kenneth M. Mogill, Orion, MI, for Respondent.

Bill Schuette, Michigan Attorney General, John J. Bursch, Solicitor General, Counsel of Record, Lansing, MI, B. Eric Restuccia, Deputy Solicitor General, Laura Moody, Appellate Division Chief, Andrea M. Christensen, Assistant Attorney General, Appellate Division, for Petitioner.

Kenneth M. Mogill, Counsel of Record, Lia N. Ernst, Paula K. Rumbold, Jill M. Schinske, Mogill, Posner & Cohen, Lake Orion, MI, for Respondent.

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 involved 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 violation 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, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), the prosecutor had exercised a race-based peremptory challenge to remove a potential juror. See Lancaster v. Adams, 324 F.3d 423 (C.A.6 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 defenses 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 insanity 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 retroactive 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 (E.D.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 majority 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 entitled 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. ––––, 133 S.Ct. 978, 184 L.Ed.2d 758 (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 unreasonably 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. ––––, ––––, 131 S.Ct. 770, 786–87, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011). 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, 84 S.Ct. 1697, 12 L.Ed.2d 894 (1964), and Rogers v. Tennessee, 532 U.S. 451, 121 S.Ct. 1693, 149 L.Ed.2d 697 (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, 84 S.Ct. 1697. 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, 84 S.Ct. 1697. 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, 84 S.Ct. 1697 (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, 84 S.Ct. 1697. 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, 84 S.Ct. 1697. 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, 84 S.Ct. 1697.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, 84 S.Ct. 1697.

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...