Law Commons^™

Original Habeas Redux, Lee B. Kovarsky

Lee Kovarsky

In "Original Habeas Redux," I map the modern dimensions of the Supreme Court’s most exotic jurisdiction—the original habeas writ. The Court has not issued such relief since 1925 and, until recently, had not ordered a case transferred pursuant to that authority in over fifty years. In August 2009, by transferring a capital prisoner’s original habeas petition to a federal district court rather than dismissing it outright, In re Davis abruptly thrust this obscure power back into mainstream legal debate over both the death penalty and the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction. Scrambling to understand how the authority has evolved since its …

Illiberal Construction, Rory Schneider

Rory K. Schneider

The dominant presence of pro se litigation on federal dockets represents the American legal system's emphasis on protecting access to court. However, if access denotes a meaningful opportunity to be heard, the drastic shift in pleading practice ushered in by the Supreme Court's ruling in Ashcroft v. Iqbal signals a troublesome retreat.

To account for the challenges faced by self-represented litigants seeking to initiate a lawsuit, federal courts liberally construe their complaints. Instituted during the now-supplanted notice pleading regime epitomized by Conley v. Gibson, liberal construction primarily targets pro se plaintiffs' inability to effectively articulate both the legal and factual …