James R. Woolery v. A.J. Arave, Warden, Idaho Maximum Security Institution

I

The Great Writ of habeas corpus is not a very popular instrument these days. Surprisingly, it is the federal judiciary which appears to find the use of the writ increasingly distasteful. A habeas corpus petitioner must cross a field filled with procedural landmines before the merits of his claims may be heard in federal court: exhaustion of remedies, procedural default, abuse of the writ, etc. Often he must do so without the help of a lawyer because there is no right to counsel on collateral attack, even though fundamental constitutional rights are ordinarily at stake. The various doctrinal…