Harris v. Booker

Erwin Harris (defendant) participated in a robbery in which his accomplice was armed with a shotgun. Harris was convicted in Michigan state court of two counts of armed robbery and two counts of felony-firearm possession on an aiding-and-abetting theory. Harris appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence to support his felony-firearm convictions. Harris alleged that prior judicial precedent from the Michigan Supreme Court had established that a defendant could only be convicted of felony-firearm possession under an aiding-and-abetting theory if the defendant had assisted in obtaining or retaining possession of the gun and that the evidence had failed to show that Harris had done so. Through a series of appeals, the Michigan Supreme Court eventually agreed that the evidence against Harris was insufficient under that standard from the prior precedent. The court, however, moved ahead to overrule that prior standard and impose a new standard that allowed conviction on a showing of general aiding and abetting. The standard from the previous precedent had been in place and consistently applied for over 20 years until Harris’s appeal. Harris filed a habeas claim in federal court, alleging that the Michigan Supreme Court’s application of a new standard with retroactive effect to his offense was a violation of due process.