US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS
OCTOBER TERM, 1994
Per Curiam
GOEKE, SUPERINTENDENT, RENZ CORRECTIONAL CENTER v. BRANCH
ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
No. 94-898. Decided March 20,1995
Before a Missouri trial court could hold a hearing to consider respondent's motion for a new trial and to sentence her for the murder of her husband, respondent took flight. She was recaptured and sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. The State Court of Appeals dismissed her timely notice of appeal on direct review and an appeal of the trial court's denial of her motion for postconviction relief, finding that, under Missouri's well-established fugitive dismissal rule, a defendant who attempts to escape justice after conviction forfeits her right to appeal. Subsequently, the Federal District Court rejected her procedural due process argument and denied her petition for habeas relief. On appeal, the Eighth Circuit found that dismissal of respondent's appeal where her preappeal flight had no adverse effect on the appellate process violated substantive due process. The court also concluded that the State had waived its argument that application of the court's ruling constituted a new rule that could not be announced in a case on collateral review under Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288.
Held: The State did not waive the Teague issue, and application of the Eighth Circuit's novel rule violates Teague's holding. The record supports the State's position that it raised the Teague claim in the District Court and the Eighth Circuit. Thus, it must be considered now, and it is dispositive. See Gaspari v. Bohlen, 510 U. S. 383, 389. The Eighth Circuit's fugitive dismissal rule was neither dictated nor compelled by existing precedent when respondent's conviction became final. Nor does the rule fall into Teague's exception for watershed rules of criminal procedure implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding.
Certiorari granted; 37 F.3d 371, reversed.
PER CURIAM.
In this case, the Eighth Circuit granted habeas relief on the ground that it is a violation of Fourteenth Amendment due process for a state appellate court to dismiss the appeal of a recaptured fugitive where there is no demonstrated ad-
Per Curiam
verse effect on the appellate process. The court declined to consider whether application of its ruling in respondent's case would violate the principle of Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989) (plurality opinion), concluding the State had waived that argument. The State raised the Teague bar, and application of the Eighth Circuit's novel rule violates Teague's holding. For this reason, certiorari is granted and the judgment is reversed.
In 1986, a Missouri jury convicted Lynda Branch of the first-degree murder of her husband. On retrial after the Missouri Court of Appeals reversed her conviction because of an error in the admission of evidence, the jury again convicted her. Branch moved for a new trial, and the trial court scheduled a hearing for April 3, 1989, to consider this motion and to sentence her. Before the hearing, however, Branch, who was free on bail, took flight to a neighboring county. She was recaptured on April 6, 1989, and sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole.
Branch filed a timely notice of appeal on direct review and an appeal of the trial court's denial of her motion for postconviction relief. In 1991, the Missouri Court of Appeals consolidated and dismissed the appeals under Missouri's well-established fugitive dismissal rule, which provides that a defendant who attempts to escape justice after conviction forfeits her right to appeal. State v. Branch, 811 S. W. 2d 11, 12 (Mo. App. 1991) (citing State v. Carter, 98 Mo. 431, 11 S. W. 979 (1889)). "[E]ven in the absence of prejudice to the state," the court explained, "the dismissal was justified by a more fundamental principle: preservation of public respect for our system of law." 811 S. W. 2d, at 12. Branch did not seek review in this Court.
On petition for federal habeas relief under 28 U. S. C. § 2254, Branch alleged that the dismissal of her consolidated appeal violated due process. The District Court undertook what it termed a procedural due process analysis under the framework set forth in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319,
