How does habeas corpus work? How does the habeas process differ from the appellate process?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Whereas anyone convicted of a crime has the right to file a direct appeal, only offenders who are
incarcerated can seek a writ of habeas corpus, which is a type of postconviction review. If the prisoner
chooses to do so, he or she petitions a state or federal court, most often a federal district court, and asks
it to issue a writ of habeas corpus. If the court decides to issue the writ, the prisoner (called the
petitioner) is brought before the court so that the constitutionality of his or her confinement can be
reviewed. Importantly, the Constitution only provides the right to petition for habeas review, not the right
to a hearing. The court has discretion to decide if it wants to grant a hearing. There are other differences
between the appellate process and the habeas corpus process. First, because habeas corpus petitions
are collateral, rather than direct, attacks on trial court judgments, offenders must exhaust all direct
appeals before challenging the judgment of the trial court via habeas corpus. Second, habeas corpus
petitions filed in federal courts must raise constitutional questions, such as ineffective assistance of
counsel (a common ground for filing habeas corpus petitions), racial discrimination in the selection of the
jury, or suppression of exculpatory evidence by the prosecutor. A third difference is that, unlike direct
appeals, petitions for writs of habeas corpus can raise issues that were not brought up and objected to
during the trial; they can be used to challenge the fact, length, or conditions of confinement. Finally,
because habeas corpus petitions are discretionary appeals, the Supreme Court has ruled that indigent
offenders filing petitions do not have to be provided with attorneys to assist them (Ross v. Moffitt, 1974).
The Court also ruled, however, that states cannot prohibit prisoners from helping each other prepare and
submit habeas corpus petitions