Habeas Corpus Petitions-Justice and Finality
Introduction
Habeas corpus is a legal, Latin derived term that literarily means “you have the body”. Habeas corpus constitutes a writ or legal action through which convicted and detained people can seek legal redress in cases of unlawful detention. The provision of Habeas corpus was legislated through the suspension clause enshrined in the constitution of the United States of America, and specifically added to the English common legislations’ procedure within article one of section nine and clause two. The legal statement therein demands that the legal action of habeas corpus should not be suspended in any legal redress action, with the exception of cases involving invasion or rebellion where it may be deemed necessary for public safety.
Habeas corpus petitions are challenges in appeals from prisoners mostly detained for violent offenses, and therefore likely to have severe sentencing-life imprisonment or death sentences. Petition issues raised mostly include ineffective counsel representation, constitutional violations (mainly the 14th, 6th, 8th, 4th and 5th amendments), court errors during trials and prosecutorial misconduct-amongst others. These appeals need to be presented for reviewing in state courts prior to their submission to federal courts. Therefore, petitioning detainees relitigate issues that had been previously resolved in search for justice in cases of perceived injustices. Successful appeals allow the federal court to issue habeas corpus writs. These writs may order the immediate release of a prisoner, reduction of his/her sentence or a remand of the case for further re-sentencing or retrial (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Hanson & Daley, 1995).
These appeals raise questions of concern about the institutional role carried by the state and federal courts, efficiency of case reviews offered by federal courts in redress for justice as well as finality of the court processes. People also question whether the federal reviews compromise the sure and swift punishment objective of the criminal justice set up. These queries form perennial debate amongst judges, national and state policy formulators and attorneys (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Hanson & Daley, 1995). The matter of concern is the review scope, with some partakers wishing to restrict federal review scope, whereas others seek to expand it.
In a personal opinion, I would state that the legal system as is right now, sufficiently allows for enough legal redress within state courts before any case can get to the federal courts. Therefore, it would be unnecessary to reopen federal courts to state prisoners. The provision of one federal court for review is sufficient, especially for death row detainees because the percentage of death row petitioners is barely 1% percent. This small number of death row petitioners should be sufficiently served by one federal review court. Many other petitions include detainees with variable jail terms (78%) and life sentences (21%) (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Hanson & Daley, 1995).The issue of concern about processing time may not necessarily be solved by reopening federal courts so as to enhance expeditious reviews. This is because research indicators imply that the time of processing is influenced by the number of petition issues raised and the complexity of the raised issues.
Therefore, it is highly likely that a similar case may take the same length of time whether it is dealt with in the present single federal court or within the supposed multiple reopened federal courts. Thus, reopening of federal courts may not cause any effect on the factor of finality in cases. According to a case study conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Hanson & Daley (1995), case processing times have been observed to vary considerably. The fastest processed petition cases of about 10% percent take up a month, whereas the slowest of about 10% percent take up to 2 to 5 years to settle. This greatly discourages applicants with sentences shorter than five years, thus greatly reducing petitions and leaving them for more serious sentences such as life terms and death sentences. As such, the one federal court for redress should be sufficient considering that petitioning is also comprehensively carried out within the state courts.
The amount of legal redress carried out within state courts is sufficient, and thus making it unnecessary to reopen federal courts to state prisoners willing to make legal petitions. This is clearly indicated by the numbers of cases that are denied on merit or dismissed. 63% percent of petition cases in federal courts are dismissed for various reasons, whereas; 35% percent are denied on merits (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Hanson & Daley, 1995). This indicates that there are not many cases that actually require legal redress because they have been comprehensively handled by state courts, and as such there is no big back log. Cases granted on merit and those remanded only constitute 2% percent of the total petitions submitted to the federal courts. The identified causes of dismissal may include a failure to exhaust state court remedies, non-cognizable issues, procedural default, abuse of writ and failure to meet court rules-just to mention but a few.
Conclusively, it would be right to state that death row inmates have enough legal redress space within state courts. If they fail to get justice within the state redress system they still have time and further space within the federal courts. The issues of finality or speed of the procedure may not be so important compared to the concerns of justice in this case (death sentence). The avenues of justice provided within the status quo are sufficient for death sentenced detainees, and as such there is no need to open more federal courts for this purpose.
References
Bureau of Justice Statistics, Hanson, A. R. and Daley, K.W.H. (1995). Federal Habeas Corpus Review: Challenging state court criminal convictions. Retrieved on 26th August, 2010 from http://contentdm.ncsconline.org/cgi-bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/criminal&CISOPTR=103.
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