Lambert v. Blackwell

A critical feature of federal courts overseeing state court decisions in criminal cases is the requirement of "exhaustion." The requirement means a person must have pursued all claims related to a case in one court before pursuing them in another. The interests of "comity" and federalism play significant roles in requiring exhaustion of all potential state remedies before federal involvement. Comity means one court should not act within its jurisdiction until another court with similar powers and already involved in the case has an opportunity to fully rule on the matter. This means state courts should also have the opportunity to respond to allegations they erred before federal courts become involved. Federalism essentially refers to the division of powers between federal and state governments, and the degree of freedom that states have from federal control. That degree has varied through time based on prevailing theories. The Court held in Frisbie v. Collins (1952) that only in cases of "special circumstances" should a federal court accept a case with unexhausted claims. However, the Court did not offer examples of such circumstances, leaving much uncertainty.

Given these principles, federal courts only issued writs for petitions alleging substantial constitutional violations. The Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments were commonly the basis for petitions, including claims of prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective assistance of legal counsel. Often, in such situations the prisoner was allowed an evidentiary hearing to review their evidence.

Public pressure from victims' rights advocates and others seeking swifter criminal proceedings mounted through the 1970s. A transformation of the Supreme Court toward dramatically decreasing the amount of federal court involvement in state judicial proceedings began with Wainwright v. Sykes (1977). Central to related debates were arguments about the appropriate role of federal court jurisdiction in a system based on federalism. Eventually, use of federal habeas corpus writs was substantially narrowed by the 1990s. In Herrera v. Collins (1993) the Court held that claims of "actual innocence" were insufficient to justify writs. Newly discovered evidence was no longer enough by itself.

In the mid-1990s the ruling in Schlup v. Delo (1995) and the passage of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996 brought even tougher standards to the habeas corpus appeals process. Prisoners challenging their convictions were required to show "clear and convincing" evidence for courts to accept their petitions, a considerably more difficult standard. The act more clearly required exhaustion of all claims at the state level before a federal judge could consider issuing a writ. All claims in a federal habeas corpus petition must have been previously presented to state courts for action. Such a requirement avoided "piecemeal" litigation by forcing all claims to be decided in a single proceeding. The exhaustion requirement could be waived if no actual state process existed for a particular case, or if it was proven that the state could not effectively protect a petitioner's rights.