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The purpose of the Habeas Corpus Litigation in United States District Courts: An Empirical Study, 2007 is to provide empirical information about habeas corpus cases filed by state prisoners in United States District Courts under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The writ of habeas corpus is a remedy regulated by statute and available in federal court to persons "in custody in violation of the Constitution..." When a federal court grants a writ of habeas corpus, it orders the state court to release the prisoner, or to repeat the trial, sentencing, or other proceeding that led to the prisoner's custody. Each year, state prisoners file between 16,000 and 18,000 cases seeking habeas corpus relief. The study was the first to collect empirical information about this litigation, a decade after AEDPA was passed. It sought to shed light upon an otherwise unexplored area of habeas corpus law by looking at samples of capital and non-capital cases and describing the court processing and general demographic information of these cases in detail.

AEDPA changed habeas law by:

• Establishing a 1-year statute of limitation for filing a federal habeas petition, which begins when appeal of the state judgment is complete, and is tolled during "properly filed" state post-conviction proceedings;

• Authorizing federal judges to deny on the merits any claim that a petitioner failed to exhaust in state court;

• Prohibiting a federal court from holding an evidentiary hearing when the petitioner failed to develop the facts in state court, except in limited circumstances;

• Barring successive petitions, except in limited circumstances; and

• Mandating a new standard of review for evaluating state court determinations of fact and applications of constitutional law.

The information found within this study is for policymakers who design or assess changes in habeas law, for litigants and courts who address the scope and meaning of the habeas statutes, and for researchers who seek information concerning the processing of habeas petitions in federal courts. Descriptive findings are provided detailing petitioner demographics, state proceedings, representation of petitioner in federal court, petitions, type of proceeding challenged, claims raised, intermediate orders, litigation steps, processing time, non-merits dispositions and merits disposition for both capital and non-capital cases which lead into the comparative and explanatory findings that provide information on current and past habeas litigation and how it has been effected by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

In 1996, the United States Congress enacted two policies to regulate the use of the legal system by state prisoners. They were the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). The purpose of this research project was to examine whether the PLRA and the AEDPA had their intended effects of reducing the number of Section 1983 lawsuits and habeas corpus petitions, respectively, at both the national and circuit court levels. The researchers obtained data, from the Research and Statistics Division of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, on the number of civil rights suits and the number of habeas corpus petitions filed by state prisoners in district courts from April 1992 to December 2000. These data were organized into monthly increments. Dataset 1, Civil Rights Suits Filed, contains 105 cases, and Dataset 2, Habeas Corpus Petitions Filed, also contains 105 cases. The trends in civil rights suits filed (Dataset 1) and habeas corpus petitions filed (Dataset 2) were measured by the number of petitions filed per 10,000 state prisoners. Filing rates were measured at the level of district courts, grouped together by the circuit court that has jurisdiction over them.

Variables in Dataset 1, Civil Rights Suits Filed, include filing date and the number of civil rights suits filed per 10,000 state prisoners at the national level as well as for district courts within each of the 11 circuits and the District of Columbia. An intervention flag variable is also included. Variables in Dataset 2, Habeas Corpus Petitions Filed, include filing date and the number of habeas corpus petitions filed per 10,000 state prisoners at the national level, as well as for district courts within each of the 11 circuits and the District of Columbia. A pulse flag variable and two intervention flag variables are also included.