Structural Change in State Post-Conviction Review

Abstract

This Article's ultimate objectives are to diagnose, predict, and evaluate structural change in State post-conviction review ("PCR"). Because claims and evidence necessary to enforce constitutional rights increasingly require a meaningful collateral forum, and because the federal collateral forum is so limited, State PCR is, for lack of a better term, the Last Man Standing. That status is not lost on the Supreme Court and lower federal judges, who are adapting available legal rules to try to improve the efficacy of collateral process in state court. And such adaptation does add to the bite of criminal-process rights, the underenforcement of which is perceived as a major blemish on American penal practice. What remains lacking, however, is a more satisfying theoretical explanation for the changes.