The current issue of the National Law Journal has two must-reads on habeas corpus.
"The gutting of habeas for state defendants," is by John Blume, Sheri Johnson and Keir Weyble; professors at Cornell Law School.
Fifteen years ago last month, President Clinton signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), which made substantial changes to federal habeas corpus law. Despite his assurance that "[f]ederal courts will interpret these provisions to preserve independent review of federal legal claims," we have witnessed the evisceration of habeas in the intervening years, making justice substantially more difficult to obtain for those wrongfully convicted in state courts. Unfortunately, we are now hearing calls for more radical restrictions of habeas in a wrong-headed bid to address budget concerns.
Habeas corpus, expressly guaranteed by our Constitution, serves the criminal justice system as a final check to ensure justice has truly been served. Literally translated as "that you have the body," a habeas corpus challenge enables an individual held in the government's custody to challenge the legality of the detention.
The AEDPA's provisions have stymied federal courts by placing overly restrictive limits on a person's ability to have the merits of his or her case heard. Petitioners are barred by time limits that run too quickly, are overly complex and can be difficult to calculate, even for seasoned attorneys. Even more damning, the law prohibits federal courts from remedying miscarriages of justice; they are powerless to correct many of the state courts' misinterpretations of U.S. constitutional or federal law.
The net result is that the AEDPA has effectively closed federal courtrooms to prisoners with legitimate claims. This closing is all the more troubling given the failure of states to provide adequate counsel and meaningful post-conviction review in their own systems. Many states do not appoint counsel for post-conviction review, no matter how serious the prisoner's allegations or how incapable he or she is of presenting these complex and technical claims. Other states provide wholly inadequate compensation to counsel, resulting in the appointment of lawyers with little experience or incentive to commit the time necessary to fully develop their client's case. These and other hurdles make clear that the wrongfully convicted can often only find justice through federal habeas.
And:
As we reflect on the anniversary of the AEDPA and consider the injustices it has wrought, there are reforms that state and federal lawmakers could adopt to effectively reduce the need for habeas review and increase the likelihood that meritorious habeas petitions receive a full and fair hearing. First and foremost, providing effective, adequately resourced counsel for indigent defendants in the trial and appellate phases is the best chance the criminal justice system has of getting it right the first time. Passionate attorneys with the resources to investigate their clients' cases will be able to address potential problems that arise during trial. Since many habeas claims are related to ineffective assistance of counsel, this is a critical reform. Prisoners should also be appointed competent counsel for post-conviction review. Evidence shows that when petitioners are given counsel to guide them through the labyrinth of post-conviction review — as they are in capital cases — win rates go up.
"Federal habeas corpus & actual innocence; As shown in the Jeffrey MacDonald case, a shake-up of the federal post-conviction system is long overdue," is by attorneys Philip G. Cormier, Andrew Good, Barry C. Scheck and Harvey A. Silverglate.
Two murders in North Carolina, separated by 21 years and 50 miles, have recently been united by the ability of scientific testing to cast doubt on the convicted. In one case, handled by state authorities, a special commission helped exonerate the wrongfully convicted. The other, under federal jurisdiction, has seen courts view piecemeal claims of innocence and reject, until late last month, pleas to consider the evidence as a whole. Taken together, the two cases highlight the procedural hurdles of the federal system that serve to unacceptably hinder claims of innocence.
Dr. Jeffrey R. MacDonald, a Green Beret physician convicted in 1979 of murdering his wife and two daughters at his apartment near Fort Bragg, N.C., in 1970, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit last March for a full review of the findings unearthed in the decades since his first trial — both the forensic evidence and the prosecutorial misconduct (resulting in suppressed evidence) that have put into question his conviction. After courts for decades examined one by one the steady trickle of exculpatory evidence — and rejected MacDonald's request for a new trial each time — the 4th Circuit on April 19 ordered the long-overdue and heretofore elusive review of the "evidence as a whole."
In stark contrast, Gregory F. Taylor, accused of murdering a prostitute in Raleigh in 1991, became the first person freed with the help of the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission last year. Established in 2006 after a wave of wrongfully convicted state prisoners were exonerated by DNA evidence, the commission helped bring to light faulty blood tests and implausible testimony in Taylor's case. On Feb. 17, 2010, after spending 6,149 of his adult days behind bars, Taylor was exonerated by a three-judge panel.
Even when scientific evidence casts serious doubt on culpability, procedural roadblocks can still prolong the prison terms of the demonstrably innocent. The state of North Carolina has taken seriously this formula for injustice; the federal criminal justice system, on the other hand, has been largely immune from having its defects exposed. The 4th Circuit's ruling in U.S. v. MacDonald rolls back this immunity, marking a significant step toward fairness, and the pursuit of truth, in the federal system.
And:
Without the powerful — and, in a federal case, unusual — tool of modern DNA technology, MacDonald's post-conviction team and its amici supporters would not have gotten far enough to even earn this chance to present a full evidentiary picture to a habeas court. It is time to recognize that the federal criminal justice system is equally prone to error as are the various state systems, and to sweep aside, by both legislative and judicial fiat, the accumulated barriers to habeas corpus review of claims of factual innocence.
MacDonald should be the last prisoner — state or federal — to have to spend 32 years (and counting) in prison while dodging one procedural pitfall after another. In a society that holds itself up as free, nothing should block the presentation of overwhelming evidence not only of wrongful conviction, but of actual innocence.
Related posts are in the AEDPA and habeas indexes. Earlier coverage of the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission begins at the link.
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