Deck 10: Appeals, Habeas Corpus, and the Death Penalty

Question 1

Appeals serve to insulate innocent offenders from a wrongful conviction or protect those who have been subjected to a______________

A) Harmful error
B) Harmless error
C) Death sentence
D) All of the above

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Unlike an appeal, which is based on ____________, a writ of __________ is provided for in the suspension clause of the Constitution, is a constitutional right, is a separate case from the original criminal conviction, and is a civil proceeding.

A) Federal law; habeas corpus
B) State law; habeas corpus
C) Local law; habeas corpus
D) None of the above

Answer 2

B

Question 3

A __________ of habeas corpus is filed for the sole purpose of seeking release from prison.

A) Statement
B) Appeal
C) Writ
D) None of the above

Answer 3

C

Question 4

What are the characteristics of an appeal?

A) The defendant's initial appeal can't be denied
B) The number of times a defendant may appeal is restricted
C) Both of the above
D) Neither of the above

Question 5

During the __________, the President assumed authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and since then Congress has legitimized the power of the executive to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in times of war or rebellion.

A) Revolutionary War
B) Cold War
C) Civil War
D) None of the above

Question 6

Curtailment of the use of the Great Writ by both the ________ and ________ branches of government was precipitated by the writ being used to delay the carrying out of state court decisions imposing the death penalty.

A) Judicial; legislative
B) Judicial; executive
C) Legislative; executive
D) None of the above

Question 7

Which Act signaled a new era in habeas corpus petitions and provided new rules meant to limit the filing of successive petitions?

A) Racial Justice Act
B) Tea Party Act
C) Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
D) Death Penalty Act

Question 8

An inmate who fails to file within the specified time limit may be granted review only if the failure to file was:

A) The result of a state action
B) The result of the Court's decision to apply a ruling retroactively
C) When evidence could not have been discovered through due diligence in time to file within the one-year time frame
D) All of the above

Question 9

In which case did the Court confirm that the AEDPA favors a "total exhaustion"?

A) Felker v. Turpin
B) Rose v. Lundy
C) Tyler v. Cain
D) Rhines v. Weber

Question 10

While an inmate must first seek a Certificate of Appealability (COA,) how many tests should be passed?

A) 2
B) 5
C) 10
D) Just 1

Question 11

In Gonzalez v. Thaler, the Court noted that the AEDPA establishes a one-year time frame to file a habeas corpus appeal, and the time begins tolling from the latest of four specified dates, including:

A) The date on which the judgment became final
B) The date on which the constitutional right asserted was initially recognized
C) All of the above
D) None of the above

Question 12

Innocence, when viewed within the realm of the death penalty, is an ambiguous legal term. It includes situations in which the inmate is actually innocent as well as situations in which a(n) _________ occurred at sentencing.

A) Conviction
B) Exoneration
C) Error
D) None of the above

Question 13

Although not a death penalty case, in McQuiggin v. Perkins, the Court suspended the ____________ and noted that a delay in filing a petition may serve to buttress the strength of the petition.

A) Execution order
B) Ordinance
C) PATRIOT Act
D) Statute of limitations

Question 14

In ________ v. Switzer, the defendant claimed that testing of all evidence would prove his innocence and thus filed multiple state and federal post-conviction appeals.

A) Lawrence
B) Schlup
C) Nelson
D) Skinner

Question 15

The narrow exceptions to the AEDPA also hold true for _______________ lawsuits.

A) Section 1983
B) Section 1981
C) Section 181
D) All of the above

Question 16

An appeal is when a defendant, dissatisfied with a lower court's decision, seeks reversal of a conviction based on a harmful legal or constitutional error.

Question 17

Appellate courts, even in death penalty cases, do not review the facts of the case to determine whether the defendant is truly guilty or not.

Question 18

Appellate courts recognize two types of errors that may occur during trial or sentencing: harmless error and harmful error.

Question 19

The writ of habeas corpus protects against the most arbitrary type of injustice-illegal detention or confinement-and is often referred to as the Great Writ.

Question 20

As is evident in this early ruling, there are two types of habeas corpus proceedings-state-level proceedings and federal-level proceedings.

Question 21

The Judiciary Act permitted federal courts to "deny an unsuccessful federal habeas corpus petition if its claims had been previously presented and rejected and if the new petition presents."

Question 22

A state prison inmate who failed to comply with procedural rules may not address issues of habeas relief in federal court because his or her petition was procedurally flawed and was therefore a defaulted petition.

Question 23

Justice Powell, who was appointed chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Habeas Corpus
in Capital Cases, noted that in other cases attorneys appear to have intentionally delayed filing until time pressures were severe.

Question 24

A COA must be obtained from a panel of three circuit court judges before the inmate is allowed to file the petition with the federal district court.

Question 25

A death petition was second or successive under the AEDPA even though the claim raised in the petition could not have been included in the petitioner's first habeas petition.

Question 26

A statute of limitations is a legal rule that places a limit on the amount of time that an inmate is allowed to file a habeas petition.

Question 27

The AEDPA encourages same-claim successive petitions but does not allow successive petitions for previously unlitigated claims.

Question 28

In Nelson v. Campbell, an inmate filed an injunction against the state of Alabama to prevent them from using a "cut-down" procedure, which would require making an incision into the arm or leg to gain access to veins in order to administer the lethal dose of drugs to effectuate his death.

Question 29

The writ of habeas corpus is an illegal remedy for death row inmates.

Question 30

In 1924, the Court began to limit the occasions when inmates could use the writ by implementing a subjective test that allowed judges to decline to hear petitions if such petitions were filed for disingenuous reasons.