Ground-breaking empirical work on habeas actions under AEDPA

As detailed in this news release from Vanderbilt, a new study led by Professor Nancy King “finds that fewer state convictions and sentences are being ruled unconstitutional by federal courts.”  Here’s more background about this important work from the press release:

The two-year study was partially funded by the National Institute of Justice and is the first to examine the effects of 1996 amendments to the habeas corpus law that apply when state prisoners challenge their convictions and sentences in federal court.  The research examined nearly 2,400 non-capital cases, randomly selected from among the more than 36,000 habeas cases filed in federal district courts nationwide by state prisoners during 2003 and 2004, and more than 360 death penalty cases filed in 13 federal districts between 2000 and 2002.

Before the 1996 law, known as the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act or “AEDPA,” federal courts granted a writ of habeas corpus to a state prisoner in about one of every 100 non-capital cases filed.  A writ of habeas corpus is a mandate from a court to a prison official ordering that an inmate be be released from custody, re-sentenced, or retried.  King’s research found that after the new law was enacted, the grant rate was closer to one in every 300 cases.

The full report can be found at this link, and an executive summary is available here.  There is so much interesting data and food-for-thought in this report, I am not sure where to begin.

I must first spotlight that the data show that state capital defendants fair much, much better than non-capital defendants in federal habeas proceedings.  Specifically, the report finds 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. In other words, in capital cases, the habeas relief “grant rate is 35 times higher than the rate in non-capital cases.”  Thus, it seems if you really want to get a federal habeas court to take your procedural complaints seriously, try to make sure you get convicted of murder and sentenced to death in state court.