Habeas corpus is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person,usually a prison official,to bring the prisoner to court,to determine whether the detention is lawful.
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA),Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law 104–132 (text)(PDF),110 Stat. 1214,enacted April 24,1996,was introduced to the United States Congress in April 1995 as a Senate Bill. The bill was passed with broad bipartisan support by Congress in response to the bombings of the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City. It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
In the United States,capital punishment is a legal penalty throughout the country at the federal level,in 27 states,and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states and in the federal capital,Washington,D.C. It is usually applied for only the most serious crimes,such as aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states,20 states have the ability to execute death sentences,with the other seven,as well as the federal government,being subject to different types of moratoriums. The existence of capital punishment in the United States can be traced to early colonial Virginia. Along with Japan,Singapore,and Taiwan,the United States is one of four advanced democracies and the only Western nation that applies the death penalty regularly. It is one of 54 countries worldwide applying it,and was the first to develop lethal injection as a method of execution,which has since been adopted by five other countries. The Philippines has since abolished executions,and Guatemala has done so for civil offenses,leaving the United States as one of four countries to still use this method. It is common practice for the condemned to be administered sedatives prior to execution,regardless of the method used.
Luis Kutner,was a US human rights activist,FBI informant and lawyer who was on the National Advisory Council of the US branch of Amnesty International during its early years and created the concept of a living will. He was also notable for his advocacy of "world habeas corpus",the development of an international writ of habeas corpus to protect individual human rights. He was a founder of World Habeas Corpus,an organization created to fight for international policies which would protect individuals against unwarranted imprisonment. Kutner's papers are at the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford University.
Clive Adrian Stafford Smith is a British attorney who specialises in the areas of civil rights and working against the death penalty in the United States of America. He worked to overturn death sentences for convicts,and helped found the not-for-profit Louisiana Capital Assistance Center in New Orleans. By 2002 this was the "largest capital defence organisation in the South." He was a founding board member of the Gulf Region Advocacy Center,based in Houston,Texas.
Schriro v. Summerlin,542 U.S. 348 (2004),was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that a requirement that a different Supreme Court decision requiring the jury rather than the judge to find aggravating factors would not be applied retroactively.
Actual innocence is a special standard of review in legal cases to prove that a charged defendant did not commit the crimes that they were accused of,which is often applied by appellate courts to prevent a miscarriage of justice.
Roger Keith Coleman was a convicted murderer and rapist from Grundy,Virginia,US,who was executed for the rape and murder in March 1981 of his sister-in-law,Wanda McCoy. That day,he had been laid off from work.
The Constitution Project is a non-profit think tank in the United States whose goal is to build bipartisan consensus on significant constitutional and legal questions. Its founder and president is Virginia Sloan. The Constitution Project’s work is divided between two programs:the Rule of Law Program and the Criminal Justice Program. Each program houses bipartisan committees focused on specific constitutional issues.
Stewart Richard Dalzell was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
In United States law,habeas corpus is a recourse challenging the reasons or conditions of a person's confinement under color of law. A petition for habeas corpus is filed with a court that has jurisdiction over the custodian,and if granted,a writ is issued directing the custodian to bring the confined person before the court for examination into those reasons or conditions. The Suspension Clause of the United States Constitution specifically included the English common law procedure in Article One,Section 9,clause 2,which demands that "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended,unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."
Joseph M. Giarratano is a former prisoner who served in Deerfield Correctional Center,in Southampton County,Virginia. On November 21,2017,he was granted parole. He was convicted based on circumstantial evidence and his own confessions,of murdering Toni Kline and raping and strangling her 15-year-old daughter Michelle on February 4,1979,in Norfolk,Virginia. He has said that he was an addict for years and had blacked out on alcohol and drugs,waking to find the bodies. He was sentenced to death and incarcerated on death row for 12 years at the former Virginia State Penitentiary.
Jonathan Hafetz is an American lawyer and writer.
Ronald P. Sokol,is a lawyer,writer,and a member of the Bar in the United States and France. He is the author of A Handbook of Federal Habeas Corpus (1965) and Justice after Darwin (1975).
Artuz v. Bennett,531 U.S. 4 (2000),was a unanimously-decided United States Supreme Court case. The case concerned whether a habeas corpus petition tolled for time under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 when certain state claims are still pending. The Court held that the petition did not toll.
Penny J. White is an American attorney and former judge who served as a judge on Tennessee’s First Judicial Circuit,a judge for the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals,and a justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court. Former Justice White was the second woman to serve on the Tennessee Supreme Court. White was removed from office in a judicial retention election in 1996 as the only justice to lose a retention election in Tennessee under the Tennessee Plan. After her time in the judiciary,White served as a professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law until her retirement in 2022.
The Habeas Corpus Suspension Act,12 Stat. 755 (1863),entitled An Act relating to Habeas Corpus,and regulating Judicial Proceedings in Certain Cases, was an Act of Congress that authorized the president of the United States to suspend the right of habeas corpus in response to the American Civil War and provided for the release of political prisoners. It began in the House of Representatives as an indemnity bill,introduced on December 5,1862,releasing the president and his subordinates from any liability for having suspended habeas corpus without congressional approval. The Senate amended the House's bill,and the compromise reported out of the conference committee altered it to qualify the indemnity and to suspend habeas corpus on Congress's own authority. Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law on March 3,1863,and suspended habeas corpus under the authority it granted him six months later. The suspension was partially lifted with the issuance of Proclamation 148 by Andrew Johnson,and the Act became inoperative with the end of the Civil War. The exceptions to Johnson's Proclamation 148 were the States of Virginia,Kentucky,Tennessee,North Carolina,South Carolina,Georgia,Florida,Alabama,Mississippi,Louisiana,Arkansas,and Texas,the District of Columbia,and the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona.
In law,post conviction refers to the legal process which takes place after a trial results in conviction of the defendant. After conviction,a court will proceed with sentencing the guilty party. In the American criminal justice system,once a defendant has received a guilty verdict,they can then challenge a conviction or sentence. This takes place through different legal actions,known as filing an appeal or a federal habeas corpus proceeding. The goal of these proceedings is exoneration,or proving a convicted person innocent. If lacking representation,the defendant may consult or hire an attorney to exercise his or her legal rights.
Davis v. Ayala,576 U.S. 257 (2015),was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a death sentence of a Hispanic defendant despite the fact that all Blacks and Hispanics were rejected from the jury during the defendant's trial. The case involved a habeas corpus petition submitted by Hector Ayala,who was arrested and tried in the late 1980s for the alleged murder of three individuals during an attempted robbery of an automobile body shop in San Diego,California in April 1985. At trial,the prosecution used peremptory challenges to strike all Black and Hispanic jurors who were available for jury service. The trial court judge allowed the prosecution to explain the basis for the peremptory challenges outside the presence of Ayala's counsel,"so as not to disclose trial strategy". Ayala was ultimately sentenced to death,but he filed several appeals challenging the constitutionality of the trial court's decision to exclude his counsel from the hearings.
Susan Bandes is an American lawyer and the current Centennial Distinguished Professor Emeritus at DePaul University. Bandes is considered one of the 20 most cited law professors in criminal law and procedure.
