What Is Post Conviction Relief or Habeas Corpus?
Primary Concerns and Considerations Courts considering a petition for post conviction relief must balance two competing concerns.
On the one hand, the Constitution guarantees fair process and contains a number of safeguards designed to keep the innocent out of jail.
On the other hand, post conviction relief is a serious disruption to the criminal justice system.
In order to ensure swift and certain punishment for criminal violations, a sense of finality must be preserved.
Furthermore, the vast majority of habeas petitions come from persons convicted in state court.
Granting a petition for relief severely disrupts the state's prerogative of punishing criminals, thereby treading the complex line that separates the federal government from the states.
In short, habeas review consists of weighing the concerns of innocence against the need for finality in the criminal justice process and possible disruptions to the federalist nature of the government.
The Threshold Requirements of Habeas Review: Custody, Exhaustion, and Adherence to Procedure In Brown vs.
Allen, a landmark case involving three African-Americans convicted of murder, Justice Frankfurter laid out the basic requirements of habeas review in his concurring opinion.
Although the scheme has been dramatically altered throughout the years, two important steps have solidly established themselves as post-conviction review thresholds.
The first is simple: a person seeking habeas relief must be in the custody of someone acting under color of law.
In the majority of cases the petitioner will be incarcerated, but the definition of "custody" also extends to parolees and those on probation.
Furthermore, some habeas petitioners are confined in halfway houses or on work release.
Prior to seeking post conviction relief, a petitioner must also exhaust all possible state remedies.
In other words, federal habeas review occurs after a person directly appeals his conviction to the highest court in his state.
In states that have their own mechanism for collateral review, petitioners must also work their way through that portion of the state's scheme.
All issues capable of being raised on direct or state collateral review must be raised prior to filing a habeas action in federal court.
A federal court will refuse to consider any issue or question that a petitioner fails to raise during his exhaustion of state remedies.
Closely related to this exhaustion requirement is the procedural default rule.
That is, a petitioner who failed to meet certain state procedural requirements, such as a contemporaneous objection rule for improper trial evidence, will be prevented from raising the issue on collateral review.
Standards of Review Although Brown vs.
Allen initially established a fairly sweeping standard of review in habeas proceedings, the rule was modified and restricted in a series of enactments culminating with Congress's Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA).
Pursuant to AEDPA, the standard the courts now employ is extremely deferential.
Federal courts will refuse to grant a petition for habeas corpus unless a trial court (or appellate court on direct appeal) applies the wrong rule, or if applies the right rule but arrives a different result on materially indistinguishable facts.
Similarly, a court cannot grant a petition unless a conviction involved an "unreasonable" application of law to fact.
In short, this standard of review gives significant deference to the convicting courts, and the number of petitions granted is therefore quite small.
New Evidence and Evidentiary Hearings Because habeas review stems in part from the concern associated with placing innocent people in prison, AEDPA contains a number of provisions designed to allow petitioners to introduce new evidence.
If, through reasonable diligence, a person accused of a crime could not discover exculpatory evidence, a habeas court will conduct an evidentiary hearing.
This most commonly occurs when a prisoner alleges a Brady violation, in which a prosecutor or investigator withholds important information during the trial process.
If a prisoner can establish that he met the threshold of reasonable diligence, and that there is a significant chance that he would not have been convicted in light of the withheld evidence, a court will can conduct a new factual hearing.
Conclusion Post conviction relief, while available, is difficult to obtain.
A petitioner can lose his opportunity to seek habeas relief at the trial and direct appeal stage, and even when a habeas proceeding is conducted, the court gives serious deference to the decisions it has before it.
Nevertheless, habeas corpus remains an important safeguard in the criminal justice system and a further guarantee of constitutional process.
On the one hand, the Constitution guarantees fair process and contains a number of safeguards designed to keep the innocent out of jail.
On the other hand, post conviction relief is a serious disruption to the criminal justice system.
In order to ensure swift and certain punishment for criminal violations, a sense of finality must be preserved.
Furthermore, the vast majority of habeas petitions come from persons convicted in state court.
Granting a petition for relief severely disrupts the state's prerogative of punishing criminals, thereby treading the complex line that separates the federal government from the states.
In short, habeas review consists of weighing the concerns of innocence against the need for finality in the criminal justice process and possible disruptions to the federalist nature of the government.
The Threshold Requirements of Habeas Review: Custody, Exhaustion, and Adherence to Procedure In Brown vs.
Allen, a landmark case involving three African-Americans convicted of murder, Justice Frankfurter laid out the basic requirements of habeas review in his concurring opinion.
Although the scheme has been dramatically altered throughout the years, two important steps have solidly established themselves as post-conviction review thresholds.
The first is simple: a person seeking habeas relief must be in the custody of someone acting under color of law.
In the majority of cases the petitioner will be incarcerated, but the definition of "custody" also extends to parolees and those on probation.
Furthermore, some habeas petitioners are confined in halfway houses or on work release.
Prior to seeking post conviction relief, a petitioner must also exhaust all possible state remedies.
In other words, federal habeas review occurs after a person directly appeals his conviction to the highest court in his state.
In states that have their own mechanism for collateral review, petitioners must also work their way through that portion of the state's scheme.
All issues capable of being raised on direct or state collateral review must be raised prior to filing a habeas action in federal court.
A federal court will refuse to consider any issue or question that a petitioner fails to raise during his exhaustion of state remedies.
Closely related to this exhaustion requirement is the procedural default rule.
That is, a petitioner who failed to meet certain state procedural requirements, such as a contemporaneous objection rule for improper trial evidence, will be prevented from raising the issue on collateral review.
Standards of Review Although Brown vs.
Allen initially established a fairly sweeping standard of review in habeas proceedings, the rule was modified and restricted in a series of enactments culminating with Congress's Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA).
Pursuant to AEDPA, the standard the courts now employ is extremely deferential.
Federal courts will refuse to grant a petition for habeas corpus unless a trial court (or appellate court on direct appeal) applies the wrong rule, or if applies the right rule but arrives a different result on materially indistinguishable facts.
Similarly, a court cannot grant a petition unless a conviction involved an "unreasonable" application of law to fact.
In short, this standard of review gives significant deference to the convicting courts, and the number of petitions granted is therefore quite small.
New Evidence and Evidentiary Hearings Because habeas review stems in part from the concern associated with placing innocent people in prison, AEDPA contains a number of provisions designed to allow petitioners to introduce new evidence.
If, through reasonable diligence, a person accused of a crime could not discover exculpatory evidence, a habeas court will conduct an evidentiary hearing.
This most commonly occurs when a prisoner alleges a Brady violation, in which a prosecutor or investigator withholds important information during the trial process.
If a prisoner can establish that he met the threshold of reasonable diligence, and that there is a significant chance that he would not have been convicted in light of the withheld evidence, a court will can conduct a new factual hearing.
Conclusion Post conviction relief, while available, is difficult to obtain.
A petitioner can lose his opportunity to seek habeas relief at the trial and direct appeal stage, and even when a habeas proceeding is conducted, the court gives serious deference to the decisions it has before it.
Nevertheless, habeas corpus remains an important safeguard in the criminal justice system and a further guarantee of constitutional process.