It is time for Congress to end its fifty-year experiment in post hoc federal court enforcement of constitutional criminal procedure. By clinging to ineffectual federal habeas review of state criminal cases, Congress is pouring tax dollars down the drain and overlooking a more effective way to enforce the Constitution: helping… Read More »
The Supreme Court has recently declared several categories of prisoners, such as juvenile and mentally retarded offenders, to be categorically ineligible for capital punishment under the Eighth Amendment. If these “death ineligible” offenders nonetheless sit on death row with procedurally defective habeas corpus petitions, can the writ be used to… Read More »
This Article tells the story of how shifts in state sentencing policy collided with shifts in federal habeas policy to produce a tangled and costly doctrinal wreck. It also proposes a simple solution to the problem.
Modern habeas law is predicated on the assumption that a state prisoner seeking habeas… Read More »