Rogers v. Tennessee

Summary

The Supreme Court affirmed the Supreme Court of Tennessee's judicial abolition of the common law 'year and a day rule' and its retroactive application to uphold Rogers's second-degree murder conviction, finding no violation of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court clarified that the Ex Post Facto Clause limits only legislatures and that due process does not incorporate its Calder categories into restrictions on courts; rather, a judicial alteration of a common law criminal doctrine may be applied retroactively unless it was 'unexpected and indefensible by reference to the law which had been expressed prior to the conduct in issue.' Because the rule was medically obsolete, had been abolished in the vast majority of jurisdictions recently addressing it, and had never once served as a ground of decision in any reported Tennessee case, its abolition was a routine exercise of common law evolution rather than an unpredictable break with prior law. Justices Stevens, Scalia (joined by Stevens and Thomas, and by Breyer as to Part II), and Breyer dissented, contending that all retroactive judicial changes to the criminal law violate due process and that Rogers had no fair warning of the change.