Big retroactivity SCOTUS development?!?

Minutes after I finish this playful SCOTUS post, I discover this thoughtful post at SCOTUSblog entitled “Court to study scope of Teague retroactivity.”  The report by Lyle Denniston details a notable retroactivity briefing request from the Court.  Here are the basics from Lyle:

The Supreme Court indicated on Tuesday that at least some Justices are interested in claims by state prisoners that they should be able to get more retroactive benefit out of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that lay down new rules of criminal procedure. The Court’s electronic docket shows an order asking the state of Minnesota to discuss that question.

Here is how the Court phrased its inquiry in the pending case of Danforth v. Minnesota (06-8273): “Are state supreme courts required to use the standard announced in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989), to determine whether United States Supreme Court decisions apply retroactively to state-court criminal cases, or may a state court apply state-law or state-constitution-based retroactivity tests that afford application of Supreme Court decisions to a broader class of criminal defendants than the class defined by Teague?” (emphasis added).

In other words, the Court seems prepared to explore (only two decades after Teague) response whether state courts are bound to apply Teague in state-court collateral attacks.   

As Lyle details, the Danforth case is focused on a Crawford issue.  But, this obviously could become a significant issue in efforts to apply Blakely (or even Apprendi) retroactivity.  Indeed, a thoughtful reader e-mail this reaction to this development: “If they take up a Blakely retroactivity case too, then that will pretty much nail down, one way or the other, the state of Blakely retroactivity.”