276
Opinion of the Court
Petitioner relies principally upon Bradley v. School Bd. of Richmond, 416 U. S. 696 (1974), and Thorpe v. Housing Authority of Durham, 393 U. S. 268 (1969), in support of her argument that our ordinary interpretive rules support application of § 102 to her case. In Thorpe, we held that an agency circular requiring a local housing authority to give notice of reasons and opportunity to respond before evicting a tenant was applicable to an eviction proceeding commenced before the regulation issued. Thorpe shares much with both the "procedural" and "prospective-relief" cases. See supra, at 273-275. Thus, we noted in Thorpe that new hearing procedures did not affect either party's obligations under the lease agreement between the housing authority and the petitioner, 393 U. S., at 279, and, because the tenant had "not yet vacated," we saw no significance in the fact that the housing authority had "decided to evict her before the circular was issued," id., at 283. The Court in Thorpe viewed the new eviction procedures as "essential to remove a serious impediment to the successful protection of constitutional rights." Ibid.30 Cf. Youakim v. Miller, 425 U. S. 231, 237 (1976) (per curiam) (citing Thorpe for propriety of applying new law to avoiding necessity of deciding constitutionality of old one).
Our holding in Bradley is similarly compatible with the line of decisions disfavoring "retroactive" application of statutes. In Bradley, the District Court had awarded attorney's fees and costs, upon general equitable principles, to parents who had prevailed in an action seeking to desegregate the public schools of Richmond, Virginia. While the
30 Thorpe is consistent with the principle, analogous to that at work in the common-law presumption about repeals of criminal statutes, that the government should accord grace to private parties disadvantaged by an old rule when it adopts a new and more generous one. Cf. DeGurules v. INS, 833 F. 2d 861, 862-863 (CA9 1987). Indeed, Thorpe twice cited United States v. Chambers, 291 U. S. 217 (1934), which ordered dismissal of prosecutions pending when the National Prohibition Act was repealed. See Thorpe, 393 U. S., at 281, n. 38; id., at 282, n. 40.
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