Mark Christopher Crew v. Dao Vang, Acting Warden

In Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347 (1964) this Court held that the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution protects criminal defendants against unforeseeable developments in judicial doctrine. Under Bouie and subsequent cases, fair warning analysis requires a determination of what constituted the crime at the time of the offense and whether the subsequent judicial construction was foreseeable. The question presented is: In determining under Bouie if a later judicial construction was foreseeable at the time of the defendant’s conduct, whether a court may disregard the state supreme court’s first authoritative interpretation of the statute solely because it was issued after the conduct occurred, even though the court was construing the statute as it existed when the conduct occurred.