Griffith v. Kentucky
- Decided
- January 13, 1987
- Docket
- 85-5221
- Status
- Published
- Jurisdiction
- Federal
Cited 3,380 timesNo negative treatment found in this library
What later courts said
- holding that on direct review, a new constitutional rule must be applied retroactively "to all cases, state or federal" — Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016)
- holding that new rules of criminal procedure are retroactively available to cases pending on direct review — United States v. Verna M. Lewis (2000)
- holding that a new rule for conducting criminal prosecutions should be applied to all cases pending on direct review or not yet final — United States v. Arthur Schuyler Ross (2002)
Each line is a later court’s own words about this case, not a summary. Read the opinion before relying on it.
How the opinion begins
[*316] Justice Blackmun delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases, one state and one federal, concern the retrospective application of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986).
In Batson, 476 U. S., at 96-98, this Court ruled that a defendant in a state criminal trial could establish a prima facie case of racial discrimination violative of the Fourteenth Amendment, based on the prosecution’s use of peremptory challenges to strike members of the defendant’s race from the jury venire, and that, once the defendant had made the prima facie showing, the burden shifted to the prosecution to come forward with a neutral explanation for those challenges. In the present cases we consider whether that ruling is applicable to litigation pending on direct state or federal review or not yet final when .Batson was decided. We answer that question in the affirmative.
Cite this
Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314 (1987)Read the full opinion
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