10-3623 Chaidez v. U.S.

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Criminal Procedure
Retroactive rules

The rule that a criminal defendant must be informed of deportation consequences is a new rule not entitled to retroactivity in collateral proceedings.

“The district court relied on the fact that Padilla itself was before the Court on a motion for post-conviction relief for its conclusion that the Court intended for Padilla to apply retroactively to cases on collateral appeal. In light of the fact that Kentucky did not raise Teague as a defense in Padilla, we do not assign the significance to Padilla’s procedural posture that the district court did. While ‘[r]etroactivity is properly treated as a threshold question,’ Teague ‘is not “jurisdictional” in the sense that [the] Court . . . must raise and decide the issue sua sponte.’ Collins v. Youngblood, 497 U.S. 37, 40-41 (1990) (emphasis in original). Therefore, if a State does not rely on Teague, the Court has no obligation to address it, and can consider the merits of the claim. Caspari v. Bohlen, 510 U.S. 383, 389 (1994). We believe it is more likely that the Court considered Teague to be waived, than that it silently engaged in a retroactivity analysis.”

Reversed.

10-3623 Chaidez v. U.S.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Gottschall, J., Flaum, J.

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