70 Am. U. L. Rev. 1125 (2021).

* Junior Staff Member, American University Law Review, Volume 70; J.D. Candidate, May 2022, American University Washington College of Law; B.S., Communication, 2014, University of Miami. I am very grateful to Professors Brent Newton and Elizabeth Earle Beske for generously offering their time and brilliance to counsel me through this process; to my Law Review colleagues, with special thanks to Maddie Dolan and Kate Van Allen, for their invaluable editorial assistance; to my beloved family and friends for their endless encouragement; and finally, to Max, who continues to astonish me with his patience and grace, for always believing that I have something worthy to say.

For centuries, criminal defendants have had the opportunity to challenge their convictions with a writ of habeas corpus. The Founding Fathers described the writ as a path to liberation for those imprisoned without sufficient cause. It is a critical safeguard of individual freedom against lawless state action in criminal proceedings. However, with every safeguard comes a loophole.

The finality of state court decisions is revered in the American criminal justice system. It is no surprise, then, that the Supreme Court has approached the issue of whether to retroactively apply new laws to cases already finalized on direct review with trepidation. In Teague v. Lane, the Court established a strict nonretroactivity doctrine that prohibits the application of new laws to decisions already made final on direct review unless the new rules fall within two extremely narrow exceptions. Teague drastically limited the scope of habeas review as a potential remedy for the most egregious state action—even if the defendant only failed to raise a claim on direct appeal because the prosecution concealed the evidence that could have altered the outcome of his trial.

The Due Process Clause unquestionably provides criminal defendants a constitutional right to have their claims fully and fairly litigated. However, how can the Due Process Clause do so for defendants who have been robbed of that right due to extra-record impediments beyond the defendants’ control? As it currently stands, prosecutors who behave unethically at trial are able to invoke Teague and other state-equivalent retroactivity doctrines as a bar to relief for criminal defendants who have procedurally defaulted claims by no fault of their own. This opportunity, shield, and reward for bad behavior alone merits certiorari review. As this Comment argues, when prosecutorial misconduct prevents a defendant from raising a claim that the defendant would have otherwise raised on direct appeal, the Due Process Clause compels the court to treat the habeas proceeding as if the defendant raised the claim on direct—as an “initial-review collateral proceeding.” When this occurs, courts should set aside retroactivity doctrines to honor every criminal defendant’s constitutional right to due process.