Federal Court Review of State Court Convictions in Noncapital Cases

Abstract

This study investigates the long-standing controversy over the scope of federal habeas corpus review of state court convictions. Because this controversy is often confounded with the debate over the death penalty, this reportfocuses only on the use of habeas corpus in noncapital cases. Although much has been written about habeas corpus from an ideological perspective, this research is distinguished by its empirical nature, by the large sample of petitions, by its use of petitions filed in both federal and state courts, and by the fact that it is one of only two multijurisdictional studies of habeas corpus ever conducted. A relatively small, and declining, proportion of prisoners are filing habeas petitions, but they tend to file multiple petitions in both state and federal court. Petitioners raise similar claims in state and federal court. Although specific claims raised vary by jurisdiction, the most common claim raised is ineffective assistance of counsel. So few petitions were granted by either state or federal court that the planned analysis of the differences