Notes on 28 U.S.C. § 2244 : US Code - Notes

Search Notes on 28 U.S.C. § 2244 : US Code - Notes

(June 25, 1948, ch. 646, 62 Stat. 965; Pub. L. 89-711, Sec. 1, Nov.
2, 1966, 80 Stat. 1104; Pub. L. 104-132, title I, Secs. 101, 106,
Apr. 24, 1996, 110 Stat. 1217, 1220.)
HISTORICAL AND REVISION NOTES
This section makes no material change in existing practice.
Notwithstanding the opportunity open to litigants to abuse the
writ, the courts have consistently refused to entertain successive
"nuisance" applications for habeas corpus. It is derived from H.R.
4232 introduced in the first session of the Seventy-ninth Congress
by Chairman Hatton Sumners of the Committee on the Judiciary and
referred to that Committee.
The practice of suing out successive, repetitious, and unfounded
writs of habeas corpus imposes an unnecessary burden on the courts.
See Dorsey v. Gill, 1945, 148 F.2d 857, 862, in which Miller, J.,
notes that "petitions for the writ are used not only as they should
be to protect unfortunate persons against miscarriages of justice,
but also as a device for harassing court, custodial, and
enforcement officers with a multiplicity of repetitious, meritless
requests for relief. The most extreme example is that of a person
who, between July 1, 1939, and April 1944 presented in the District
Court 50 petitions for writs of habeas corpus; another person has
presented 27 petitions; a third, 24; a fourth, 22; a fifth, 20. One
hundred nineteen persons have presented 597 petitions - an average
of 5."
SENATE REVISION AMENDMENTS
Section amended to modify original language which denied Federal
judges power to entertain application for writ where legality of
detention had been determined on prior application and later
application presented no new grounds, and to omit reference to
rehearing in section catch line and original provision authorizing
hearing judge to grant rehearing. 80th Congress, Senate Report No.
1559, Amendment No. 45.
AMENDMENTS
1996 - Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 104-132, Sec. 106(a), substituted ",
except as provided in section 2255." for "and the petition presents
no new ground not heretofore presented and determined, and the
judge or court is satisfied that the ends of justice will not be
served by such inquiry."
Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 104-132, Sec. 106(b), amended subsec. (b)
generally. Prior to amendment, subsec. (b) read as follows: "When
after an evidentiary hearing on the merits of a material factual
issue, or after a hearing on the merits of an issue of law, a
person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court has
been denied by a court of the United States or a justice or judge
of the United States release from custody or other remedy on an
application for a writ of habeas corpus, a subsequent application
for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of such person need not be
entertained by a court of the United States or a justice or judge
of the United States unless the application alleges and is
predicated on a factual or other ground not adjudicated on the
hearing of the earlier application for the writ, and unless the
court, justice, or judge is satisfied that the applicant has not on
the earlier application deliberately withheld the newly asserted
ground or otherwise abused the writ."
Subsec. (d). Pub. L. 104-132, Sec. 101, added subsec. (d).
1966 - Pub. L. 89-711 designated existing provisions as subsec.
(a), struck out provision making the subsection's terms applicable
to applications seeking inquiry into detention of persons detained
pursuant to judgments of State courts, and added subsecs. (b) and
(c).