Page:United States Reports, Volume 542.djvu/445

406

No. 02–1603.

(a) Teague analysis involves a three step process requiring a court to determine when a defendant's conviction became final; whether, given the legal landscape at the time the conviction became final, the rule sought to be applied is actually new; and, if so, whether it falls within either of two exceptions to nonretroactivity. P. 411.

(b) Respondent's conviction became final before Mills was decided. The normal rule for determining a state conviction's finality for retro-activity review—when the availability of direct appeal to the state courts has been exhausted and the time for filing a certiorari petition has elapsed or a timely petition has been ﬁnally denied—applies here. That the Pennsylvania Supreme Court considered the merits of respondent's Mills claim on collateral review does not change his conviction's finality to a date subsequent to Mills. Pp. 411–413.

(c) Mills announced a new rule. In reaching its conclusion in Mills and McKoy, this Court relied on a line of cases beginning with Locket v. Ohio,. Lockett ' s general rule that the sentencer must be allowed to consider any mitigating evidence could be thought to support the conclusion in Mills and McKoy that capital sentencing schemes cannot require juries to disregard mitigating factors not found unanimously, but it did not mandate the Mills rule. Each of the cases relied