Law Commons^™

Habeas As Forum Allocation: A New Synthesis, Carlos M. Vázquez

University of Miami Law Review

The scope of habeas relief for state prisoners, especially during the decades before the Supreme Court’s 1953 decision in Brown v. Allen, is a famously disputed question—one of recognized significance for contemporary debates about the proper scope of habeas review. This Article provides a new answer. It argues that, until the enactment of Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), it was broadly accepted that state prisoners were entitled to plenary federal review of the legal and mixed law/fact questions decided against them by state courts. Until 1916, such review was provided by the Supreme Court; after 1953, …