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1 Habeas & Prison Litigation Case Law Update 1 (1996-1998)

handle is hein.congcourts/habepric0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Habeas & Prison Litigation Case Law Update
a publication of the Federal Judicial Center * available via Internet at http://www.jc.gov * number 1, June 1996

Two statutes enacted in April 1996 will have major effects on
how federal courts deal with prisoner petitions. Title I of the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act concerns ha-
beas petitions, and the Prison Litigation Reform Act concerns
conditions of confinement suits. Because these statutes are
complex and likely to spawn a great deal of litigation, the
Center will attempt to assist the courts by several means.
1. We will produce this newsletter to summarize relevant
appellate and district court decisions under the statutes. We
see it as a quick-response, short-term effort to help judges
during the most intense period ofjudicial interpretation. It is
patterned after our Guideline Sentencing Update publication,
but will have a shorter life span. This first issue includes
decisions reported as of May 27, 1996.
2. We are planning a nationally broadcast videoseminar late
this summer to analyze the new habeas provisions and how
the courts have been interpreting them, with some attention
also to the Prison Litigation Reform Act.
3. We will adapt our already scheduled regular educational

programs to take account of these legislative changes. For
example, the June conference of chief probation and pretrial
services officers, the August Capital Case Management Work-
shop for appellate clerks, this summer's programs for magis-
trate judges, and September's seminar on pro se litigation are
all undergoing curriculum revision in light of these statutes.
We are also helping circuit conference planners arrange pro-
grams on these topics.
4. We will focus on these statutes in several of our regular
reporting services. The Chambers to Chambers serial periodi-
cal, currently running a series on federal capital prosecutions,
will share court and case management innovations thatjudges
and courts have developed in response to the new statutes.
Our Resource Guide for Managing Prisoner Civil Rights Litiga-
tion, which has been in draft status pending the new legisla-
tion, will now move to final publication.
We welcome your comments about our responses to the
new legislation and any suggestions you have. We will try to
be as flexible as possible in our assistance to the courts.

HABEAS CORPUS

Courts of Appeals
Eleventh Circuit denies authorization to file second ha-
beas petition under amended habeas statute; Supreme
Court grants certiorari. After the appellate court affirmed the
denial of defendant's first federal petition for habeas corpus
relief and the Supreme Court denied his petition for certiorari,
the state set his execution for between May 2 and May 9, 1996.
The state courts denied defendant's second state habeas peti-
tion, and on May 2 he filed in the federal appellate court a
request for a stay of execution and an application, pursuant to
section 106 of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty
Act of 1996 (to be codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)), for
permission to file a second federal habeas petition in the
district court. He claimed that he satisfied the requirements for
a second habeas filing under the Act, and he argued alterna-
tively that the new Act unconstitutionally restricted his right
to bring habeas claims. The appellate court did not reach this
second claim because it determined that defendant would not
have been entitled to relief under either the new law or pre-Act
law.
Under new section 2244(b) (3) (C),  [t]he court of appeals
may authorize the filing of a second or successive application
only if it determines that the application makes a prima facie

showing that the application satisfies the requirements of this
subsection. The court held that neither of defendant's claims
satisfied the provisions of section 2244 (b) (2) (A) or (B): he did
not rel[y] on a new rule of constitutional law ... that was
previously unavailable; the factual predicate for the claim
was already known; and the facts underlying the claim
would not be sufficient to establish, even under the prepon-
derance standard, that no reasonable factfinder would have
found the applicant guilty of the underlying offense. The
court concluded that Felker has failed to show substantial
grounds upon which relief might be granted under the new
Act. Likewise, he has failed to show substantial grounds upon
which relief might be granted insofar as any constitutional
issues involving the Act are concerned, because he would not
be entitled to any relief even under pre-Act law.
Felker v Turpin, No. 96-1077 (11th Cir. May 2, 1996) (per
curiam).
The Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Felker, limited
to the following issues: (1) Whether Title I of the Anti-
Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (the Act),
and in particular Section 106(b) (3) (E), 28 U.S.C.
§2244(b)(3)(E), is an unconstitutional restriction of the

Habeas & Prison Litigation Case Law Update is distributed periodically by the Federal Judicial Center to inform judges and other judicial branch
personnel of selected federal court decisions interpreting the 1996 federal legislation on habeas petitions and prison litigation. Any analyses or
interpretations of the case law are those of the Center staff who prepare the summaries.

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