{"id":1579,"date":"2023-01-09T17:51:09","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T22:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/?page_id=1579"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:09:22","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:09:22","slug":"expanding-cause-how-federal-courts-should-address-severe-psychiatric-impairments-that-impact-state-post-conviction-review","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/in-print\/volume-60-number-1-winter-2023\/expanding-cause-how-federal-courts-should-address-severe-psychiatric-impairments-that-impact-state-post-conviction-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Expanding Cause: How Federal Courts Should Address Severe Psychiatric Impairments That Impact State Post-Conviction Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span>A state prisoner must comply with state procedural rules to obtain federal judicial review of one\u2019s detention or sentence of death, but what if a severe psychiatric impairment or illness prevents the prisoner\u2014or one\u2019s counsel\u2014from complying with those rules? Federal habeas courts have not agreed on whether this type of impairment can excuse a procedural default. This Article argues that courts refusing to recognize severe psychiatric impairments as valid excuses for defaults are asking the wrong questions, like whether an impairment is \u201cexternal to the petitioner.\u201d Courts instead should ask whether an impairment impeded a petitioner\u2019s ability to comply with a procedural rule or caused a breakdown in an attorney-client relationship. Declining to recognize severe impairments as valid excuses in these circumstances is out of step with the Supreme Court\u2019s guidance and creates hard-to-justify inconsistencies with the principles underlying procedural default and other areas of habeas law.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/01\/60-1_Marcin_Expanding_Cause.pdf\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0A state prisoner must comply with state procedural rules to obtain federal judicial review of one\u2019s detention or sentence of death, but what if a severe psychiatric impairment or illness [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9109,"featured_media":0,"parent":1564,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-1579","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1579"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1592,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1579\/revisions\/1592"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}