In the United States, a state court is a law court with jurisdiction over disputes with some connection to a U.S. state. State courts handle the vast majority of civil and criminal cases in the United States; the United States federal courts are far smaller in terms of both personnel and caseload, and handle different types of cases. States often provide their trial courts with general jurisdiction and state trial courts regularly have concurrent jurisdiction with federal courts. Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction and their subject-matter jurisdiction arises only under federal law.
A writ of coram nobis is a legal order allowing a court to correct its original judgment upon discovery of a fundamental error that did not appear in the records of the original judgment's proceedings and that would have prevented the judgment from being pronounced.
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.
Day v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 198 (2006), is a US Supreme Court case involving the one-year statute of limitations for filing habeas corpus petitions that was established by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). In a 5–4 decision, the Court ruled that if the government unintentionally failed to object to the filing of a petition after the AEDPA limitations period has expired, it is not an abuse of discretion for a district court to dismiss sua sponte the petition on that basis.
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."
Pre-trial detention, also known as jail, preventive detention, provisional detention, or remand, is the process of detaining a person until their trial after they have been arrested and charged with an offence. A person who is on remand is held in a prison or detention centre or held under house arrest. Varying terminology is used, but "remand" is generally used in common law jurisdictions and "preventive detention" elsewhere. However, in the United States, "remand" is rare except in official documents and "jail" is instead the main terminology. Detention before charge is commonly referred to as custody and continued detention after conviction is referred to as imprisonment.
District Attorney's Office for the Third Judicial District v. Osborne, 557 U.S. 52 (2009), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court decided that the Constitution's due process clause does not require states to turn over DNA evidence to a party seeking a civil suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
Fundamental error is a legal term provided by United States Courts to describe an error which occurs whenever a judgement violates a federal fundamental right. In United States constitutional law, fundamental rights have special significance under the U.S. Constitution. Those rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution are recognized as "fundamental" by the U.S. Supreme Court. State courts within the United States may define fundamental error rules independently of the federal courts. State fundamental error rules may include errors which violate rights in additional to those rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, but these rules may not infringe upon federal fundamental rights. Any law restricting such a right must both serve a compelling state purpose and be narrowly tailored to that compelling purpose.
Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293 (1963), was a United States Supreme Court case wherein the Court expanded the circumstances in which federal courts should hold evidentiary hearings when presented with petitions for habeas corpus by state prisoners following denial of postconviction relief in state court. The Court held that federal district courts must hold evidentiary hearings if the state court did not resolve all material factual disputes in a full and fair hearing supported by the record.
Edwards v. Vannoy, 593 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the Court's prior decision in Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), which had ruled that jury verdicts in criminal trials must be unanimous under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that Ramos did not apply retroactively to earlier cases prior to their verdict in Ramos.
Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365 (1986), was a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that clarified the relationship of the right to effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment to other constitutional rights in criminal procedure. In this case, evidence against the defendant was probably seized illegally, violating the Fourth Amendment, but he lost the chance to argue that point due to his lawyer's ineffectiveness. The prosecution argued that the defendant's attempt to make a Sixth Amendment argument via a habeas corpus petition was really a way to sneak his procedurally defaulted Fourth Amendment claim in through the back door. The Court unanimously disagreed, and held that the Fourth Amendment issue and the Sixth Amendment issue represented different constitutional values, and had different requirements for prevailing in court, and therefore were to be treated separately by rules of procedure. Therefore, the habeas corpus petition could go forward. In its opinion, the Court also gave guidance on how to apply its decisions in Stone v. Powell and Strickland v. Washington.
Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case about ineffective assistance of counsel claims which allowed a narrow exception to Coleman v. Thompson. Coleman said that inadequate post-conviction counsel is not cause to excuse procedural default for a state habeas claim that was filed late under the state's procedural rules. The Supreme Court may excuse a procedural default if state procedures do not allow at least one "full and fair" opportunity to litigate the constitutional claim. The narrow holding of Martinez excused procedural default caused by attorney error in "initial review collateral proceedings" where state law requires that ineffective assistance claims are raised in post-conviction proceedings and makes no provision for post-conviction counsel.
Murray v. Giarratano, 492 U.S. 1 (1989), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that capital defendants do not have a constitutional right to counsel in state collateral postconviction proceedings.
Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72 (1977), was a United States Supreme Court case decided on June 23, 1977. In a 7–2 decision by Associate Justice William Rehnquist, the Court held that, if a state prisoner fails to raise a federal constitutional claim at trial or on appeal in a manner in keeping with the state's requirements, and cause and prejudice for this failure cannot be shown, that claim cannot be subsequently raised in federal habeas corpus proceedings. The majority adopted the "cause" and "prejudice" requirement that had been laid out in the 1976 Supreme Court decision, Francis v. Henderson, rejecting the broader standard the Court had outlined in the 1963 case Fay v. Noia. Sykes has since been recognized as one of multiple Supreme Court cases that limited the scope of its prior decision in Fay v. Noia, which the Court eventually overruled completely in the 1991 case Coleman v. Thompson. However, Sykes did not completely overrule Fay, though some scholars have argued that Sykes narrowed the scope of Fay so much as to effectively overrule it.
Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391 (1963), was a 1963 United States Supreme Court case concerning habeas corpus. In a majority opinion authored by Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., the Court held that state prisoners were entitled to access to habeas relief in federal court, even if they did not pursue a remedy in state court that was not available to them at the time. Furthermore, the majority in Fay set out the "deliberate bypass" standard, whereby federal habeas courts could not deny petitions brought by state prisoners unless that prisoner had "deliberately bypassed the orderly procedure of state courts" for the adjudication of constitutional claims.
Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722 (1991), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on June 24, 1991. The Court held that the petitioner, convicted murderer Roger Keith Coleman, was barred from raising his claims of federal constitutional violations in a federal habeas court, because he had previously procedurally defaulted these claims in state habeas proceedings. This default had occurred because Coleman's lawyers inadvertently filed their notice of appeal three days later than required by the rules of the Supreme Court of Virginia.
Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217 (1969), was a United States Supreme Court case decided in 1969. In a majority opinion authored by Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., the Court held that criminal defendants could bring claims that evidence against them was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution in a collateral attack under the federal habeas corpus statute. In doing so, the Court overruled the contrary decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which had held that Kaufman could not raise his Fourth Amendment claim in a collateral attack. The Supreme Court's decision in Kaufman also ran counter to most other previous decisions by federal appeals courts, most of which had held that claims of unreasonable searches and seizures could only be raised on direct appeal, rather than in collateral proceedings.
Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443 (1953), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case about habeas corpus.
Darr v. Burford, 339 U.S. 200 (1950), was a United States Supreme Court case about habeas corpus.
