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Seeking more number crunching and deep thoughts on the great writ

By Douglas A. Berman

US District Judge Lynn Adelman's new article titled "The Great Writ Diminished" aspires to "stimulate a discussion about the current state of habeas corpus.  Wonderfully, the article has already started such a discussion in these blog comments, and I want to keep the momentum going in this post. Specifically, I would like to see a lot more number crunching concerning habeas appeals of state convictions in federal courts.  Judge Adelman builds off the ground-breaking 2007 Vanderbilt study which, as discussed here, found that of 2384 non-capital filings examined, petitioners received relief a rate of 1 in every 341 cases filed, whereas of the 267 capital cases examined, about 1 in 8 petitioners received relief.  These national numbers may obscure lots of significant state variations and also significant issue-specific variations that could and should tell us a lot more about how the great writ is really working...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on May 16, 2009 (boomark / email).