A couple of months ago, I had read about a really interesting sounding academic article focusing on the "widespread and growing problem of delay in the resolution of habeas petitions in the federal courts." The article itself is called, "The Hidden Costs of Habeas Delay" and it was written by Marc Falkoff, a professor at Northern Illinois University College of Law. The author has informed me that a revised version of the article will be coming out in the University of Colorado Law Review later this year.
I can say, from my office's experience, that we have definitely seen long delays in a good number of our habeas cases. So this is a real issue in my mind. The article should definitely be worth checking out.
Here's the full abstract:
Because habeas petitioners seek a court order for liberty rather than compensation, judges have a duty to decide habeas petitions promptly. Increasingly, however, the federal courts have failed to keep current with their heavy habeas dockets, with the result that many petitions – some proportion of which are meritorious – remain undecided for years. First, this Article makes the normative and historical argument that speed must be, and always has been, central to the function of habeas. Second, it analyzes newly compiled Administrative Office data on more than 200,000 habeas petitions and demonstrates empirically for the first time that there is a widespread and growing problem of delay in the resolution of habeas petitions in the federal courts. Third, the Article offers a specific and concrete remedy for the habeas delay problem, recommending that the Judicial Conference require judges to identify publicly all habeas petitions that have been pending in their chambers for more than six months, just as the Civil Justice Reform Act requires them to do for all other civil motions.
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