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"Habeas Corpus and State Sentencing Reform: A Story of Unintended Consequences"

By Douglas A. Berman

This title of this post is the title of this new piece from Professors Nancy King and Susan Sherry appearing on SSRN that looks like a must-read for the long weekend.  Here is the abstract:This Article tells the story of how fundamental shifts in state sentencing policy collided with fundamental shifts in federal habeas policy to produce a tangled and costly doctrinal wreck. The conventional assumption is that state prisoners seeking habeas relief allege constitutional errors in their state-court convictions and sentences. But almost twenty percent of federal habeas petitions filed by state prisoners do not challenge state-court judgments. They instead attack administrative actions by state prison officials or parole boards, actions taken long after the petitioner's conviction and sentencing...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on May 23, 2008 (boomark / email).