Cite as: 532 U. S. 451 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
ing to indicate that abolition of the rule in petitioner's case represented an exercise of the sort of unfair and arbitrary judicial action against which the Due Process Clause aims to protect. Far from a marked and unpredictable departure from prior precedent, the court's decision was a routine exercise of common law decisionmaking that brought the law into conformity with reason and common sense. Pp. 462-467.
992 S. W. 2d 393, affirmed.
O'Connor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Kennedy, Souter, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 467. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens and Thomas, JJ., joined, and in which Breyer, J., joined as to Part II, post, p. 467. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 481.
W. Mark Ward argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Tony Brayton and Garland Ergüden.
Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General of Tennessee, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Paul G. Summers, Attorney General, and Gordon W. Smith, Associate Solicitor General.*
Justice O'Connor delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the constitutionality of the retroactive application of a judicial decision abolishing the common law "year and a day rule." At common law, the year and a day rule provided that no defendant could be convicted of murder unless his victim had died by the defendant's act within a year and a day of the act. See, e. g., Louisville, E. & St. L. R. Co. v. Clarke, 152 U. S. 230, 239 (1894); 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 197-198 (1769). The Supreme Court of Tennessee abolished the rule as it had existed at common law in Tennessee and applied its decision to petitioner to uphold his conviction. The question before us is whether, in doing so, the court denied petitioner due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
*Paula R. Voss filed a brief for the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys as amicus curiae urging reversal.
453
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