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Death rows across the country are filled with people suffering from severe forms of mental illness. Taking action in an area where the U.S. Supreme Court has not ventured, some states are now enacting or considering laws that would exclude those prisoners from capital punishment.
When the Supreme Court rules on criminal law, it sometimes makes prisoners retroactively innocent of their crimes. This court term, in a case involving a Missouri man imprisoned for over 20 years for possessing a gun as a felon, the court will clarify whether federal prisoners can file writs of habeas corpus after new case law makes them legally innocent.
The Great Writ has been on a declining trajectory for several decades. With no signs that Congress will use its power to shore up the habeas process, and a Supreme Court appearing bent on limiting it, the future of habeas corpus is more uncertain than ever.