Page 53 - Impact: Collected Essays on Expanding Access to Justice

provisions codified and intensified common law exhaustion and procedural default requirements, and imposed a one-year deadline for the filing of a federal habeas corpus petition challenging the constitutionality of a conviction .9
Two days later, Congress passed a second statute with broad implications for prisoners . The Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”)10 erected new and daunting barriers to federal civil litigation of unconstitutional prison conditions . The statute requires prisoners to file timely prison grievances and to fully exhaust all available remedies before filing a federal action .11 It also modified in forma pauperis provisions that now require prisoners challenging prison conditions to pay a $350 federal civil filing fee, regardless of indigence .12 Significantly, the PLRA also limits the power of federal courts to grant prospective injunctive relief, assumes that all prospective relief will end in two years,13 and erects new barriers to settlements enforceable in federal court .
Both AEDPA and the PLRA have deprived people in prison of access to justice . AEDPA privileges finality and efficiency by elevating state evidentiary records and the decisionmaking of state court judges . This expeditious review, which accords excessive deference to actors who operate in forums with incentives to defend prosecutorial action, has effectively deprived prisoners of an objective and independent review of their convictions . Simultaneously, the PLRA has erected barriers to civil actions filed by prisoners . At the front end, it has increased filing fees, required complete exhaustion of all internal prison remedies and injected initial screening of prisoner complaints . At the back end, it discourages even meritorious litigation by limiting prospective injunctive relief and reducing attorney fee awards .
A. restrictions on habeas Corpus Deny Prisoners A federal forum to Challenge Their Conviction
The historical roots of federal habeas corpus, commonly referred to as the Great Writ, are well known . Enshrined in the American Constitution but famously suspended during the Civil War, habeas corpus jurisdiction of federal courts over state prisoners was established by the Judiciary Act of February 5, 1876 . Almost one hundred years later, in Fay v. Noia, Justice Brennan traced this history and the centrality of the writ to “the unceasing contest between personal liberty and government oppression .”14
In this pre-AEDPA case, Mr . Noia was convicted with Santo Caminito and Frank Bonino of felony murder .15 The only evidence against each defendant was his signed confession .16 Caminito and Bonino appealed unsuccessfully but were later released when their confessions were found to have been coerced in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment .17 Mr . Noia did not appeal, but the
9 28 u.S.C. § 2244(d)(1); 28 u.S.C. § 2255(f).
10 Pub. L. No. 104-134, tit. VIII, 110 Stat. 1321 (1996).
11 42 u.S.C. § 1997(e)(a).
12 28 u.S.C. § 1915.
13 18 u.S.C. § 3626(b)(1).
14 Fay v. Noia, 372 u.S. 392, 400-401 (1963).
15 Id. at 394.
16 Id. at 395.
17 Id.
Specific Areas for Reform: Prisoners’ Rights
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