LAW-3456: Post-Conviction Remedies

This course focuses on collateral challenges to criminal convictions, which are known as post-conviction remedies. Post-conviction remedies balance the need for finality and the conservation of judicial resources against the protection of the innocent and the guarantee of constitutional rights. The course will explore both state post-conviction remedies (with an emphasis on Tennessee's post-conviction scheme) and federal habeas corpus. Topics covered in the course will include the threshold requirements for post-conviction relief; post-conviction procedure; the grounds for post-conviction relief such as prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel, newly discovered evidence, "free-standing" innocence claims, and illegal sentences; federal habeas corpus under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996; and the ethical considerations that arise in post-conviction proceedings.