Federal Court Supervision of State Criminal Justice Administration

Federal courts supervise state criminal justice administration through decisions under two federal statutes, the Habeas Corpus Act and section 1983, a Civil Rights Act provision. These statutes provide overlapping review of constitutional errors. Habeas law has become too technical, limited by procedural barriers that often result in prisoners' losing their constitutional claims; moreover, the overlap between the two statutes adds further confusion. The theoretical basis for this complicated system of duplicative litigation no longer exists. Because the most important law of criminal procedure is now completely federal, state courts have no institutional reason to resist its application in favor of their own. Habeas law should be reformed and simplified to protect the goals of criminal procedure: innocence and deterrence of unreasonable state-court constitutional interpretations. Section 1983 litigation revisiting issues that the plaintiff had a meaningful opportunity to raise in state court or on habeas should be curtailed, unless the plaintiff demonstrates that one of those courts has ruled in his favor.