Federal Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure
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Description
In 1996, Congress substantially reshaped federal habeas corpus law and procedure by enacting the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). The legislation affected numerous aspects of the federal habeas corpus process, changing standards and procedures that had long been in effect. Since 1996, the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts have grappled with numerous difficult questions in interpreting AEDPA’s language and determining how best to implement the legislation’s general rules in a wide variety of factual contexts, many of which were not anticipated by AEDPA’s drafters and do not fit comfortably within AEDPA’s rules. Finally, as of now, a decade later, the bulk of the largest and most vexing questions have been resolved, leaving only a few issues that still require resolution by the Supreme Court. This edition of the book accordingly is able to present a more complete picture of AEDPA’s standards and implications than was possible in prior editions. Chapter 3 presents an overview of AEDPA’s provisions (and, in 3.5b, an outline of the rules that apply to different types of cases) and subsequent chapters delineate the specific changes that AEDPA made and the types of cases to which the changes apply. Yet, even as this book is going off to press in October 2005, the Senate and the House of Representatives are considering new bills that could radically change federal habeas corpus law and ignite an even larger and more troubling set of interpretational and constitutional difficulties and implementation problems. Not surprisingly, therefore, the bills have prompted opposition not only from advocates on behalf of the imprisoned but also from federal and state court judges and state attorneys general who seek to stave off the kinds of procedural uncertainties and delays that Congress produced with its enactment of AEDPA in 1996 and from which the federal and state courts are only now beginning to recover. This then is a paradoxical moment for federal habeas corpus procedure: The federal habeas corpus process has finally attained a degree of stability that has been absent since Congress’ enactment of AEDPA; and yet the process stands on the precipice of a new period of chaos. Because there is no way to predict at this point whether any of the pending bills or some variant will be enacted, or even whether or how soon Congress will reach a judgment about the proposals, we have decided to go forward with this new edition in the hope of providing our readers with our best understanding of the law as it currently exits. In the event that any new legislation is adopted, we will respond promptly by issuing a supplement to describe the new statutes and how they interact with preexisting law and procedure.
Publication Date
2005
Edition
5
Recommended Citation
Hertz, Randy A. and Liebman, James S., "Federal Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure" (2005). Faculty Books & Edited Works. 394.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-books-edited-works/394
