--- title: "Attempt to Strip the Federal Courts' Review Power in Death Penalty Cases Meets Conservative Opposition" description: 'The following article by Henry Weinstein appeared in the Los Angeles Times, July 28, 2005: (DPIC Note: The Senate Judiciary Committee put off markup of…' canonical: 'https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/attempt-to-strip-the-federal-courts-review-power-in-death-penalty-cases-meets-conservative-opposition' section: news date: '2005-07-28T17:14:49-04:00' updated: '2025-03-14T14:22:20-04:00' source: 'Death Penalty Information Center' --- The following article by Henry Weinstein appeared in the Los Angeles Times, July 28, 2005: (DPIC Note: The Senate Judiciary Committee put off markup of the Streamlined Procedures Act, probably until September. Also, see **[Letter from former Attorneys General and prosecutors](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/StreamlinedLetter.pdf)** opposing this legislation.) THE NATION **Bid to Speed Death Penalty Appeals Under Fire** **Conservatives and former prosecutors are among foes of a bill, before a Senate panel today, to curtail 'endless' delays in cases.** By Henry Weinstein Times Staff Writer The Senate Judiciary Committee will take up legislation today meant to streamline the death penalty appeals process — something critics fear could lead to the execution of the wrongly convicted. Opposition is mounting to the Streamlined Procedures Act introduced in the Senate by Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and in the House by Dan Lungren (R-Gold River). Concerns come not only from death-penalty opponents but from individuals and groups not often thought of as vocal supporters of the rights of criminal defendants. Among the critics are the Rutherford Institute, a conservative legal group that specializes in religious freedom and antiabortion issues; Bob Barr, the conservative Republican former congressman from Georgia; more than 50 former prosecutors; and more than a dozen former federal judges. The legislation, opponents say, would dramatically restrict federal courts' ability to consider habeas corpus petitions from state prisoners who claim that their constitutional rights have been violated or that they have evidence they are innocent. Habeas corpus is the centuries-old method of challenging allegedly illegal imprisonments by giving inmates a day in court to assert that a serious error has been made in their case. Kyl and Lungren introduced virtually identical bills in the Senate and House to remedy "endless delays" between convictions in capital cases and executions. They say that restrictions Congress imposed in the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 are not enough. Kyl said the number of habeas corpus petitions pending in federal district courts had increased to 23,218 in fiscal year 2003, from 13,359 in fiscal year 1994, citing Administrative Office of the Courts data. The bill would impose a host of restrictions on an inmate's ability to get a federal court to hear a habeas corpus petition. A group of former federal judges, in a letter of opposition, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that "there are now too many instances to ignore in which innocent people were sentenced to prison, or even to death, and it took years for the evidence of their innocence to come to light." Kyl said the bill had an exception that would enable innocent people to obtain relief from a wrongful conviction. But the former judges — including William H. Webster and William S. Sessions, both of whom served as directors of the FBI in Republican administrations — countered that "the language of the exception is so narrow that it will cover virtually no one." The former jurists also said the bill would overturn several recent Supreme Court decisions interpreting the 1996 death penalty act "as well as several other decisions of the Rehnquist court, many of which have helped to further streamline the system and eliminate delays. It serves no one's interests to engender the kind of delays that this bill will create" by precipitating more litigation. Moreover, the judges said, the impact of the bill would be "far more sweeping" than death penalty cases. The restrictions it would impose would cover "every state criminal conviction," including cases involving businesses, firearms and the environment. The sweep of the measure is troubling and unwarranted, Barr said in a letter sent Wednesday to Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). "I stand second to no one in believing in swift and certain justice," wrote Barr, a former prosecutor and one of the authors of the 1996 law. He said he thought the law was "working well to restrict \[habeas corpus\] petitions" and had seen "no evidence to the contrary." "As a former member of Congress, I know that unfortunately there are times when political pressures lead to imprudent decisions that can be destructive to basic constitutional liberties…. \[This\] is an example of legislation that is being pressed without sufficient deliberation, and without any real evidence that it is needed.'' Among the former prosecutors against the bill are Ira Reiner, who served as Los Angeles County district attorney from 1984 to 1992, and Gil Garcetti, who held the position for eight years after that. Reiner, who is a proponent of the death penalty and sought it dozens of times while running the district attorney's office, said he strongly opposed "this ill-conceived bill … whose transparent purpose is to strip the federal courts of their jurisdiction to review state criminal court proceedings." He said it would "eviscerate the role of the federal courts in ensuring that innocent persons are not mistakenly convicted of crimes and that state courts do not send people to prison in violation of their constitutional rights." At the first Senate hearing on the bill, Kent Cattani of the Arizona attorney general's office testified in support of the measure. Specter asked him whether Congress had "the authority to strip the courts of jurisdiction on constitutional issues." Cattani replied, "Yes, I think Congress has the authority to do so." At the same hearing, Seth P. Waxman, who was U.S. solicitor general in the Clinton administration, described four death penalty cases in the last four years in which the Supreme Court found major constitutional violations overlooked by state courts. In one instance, prosecutors hid critical information from the defense. In another, the Supreme Court found that prosecutors had improperly kept blacks off a jury. If the Kyl-Lungren bill had been in effect, none of those cases would ever have been reviewed by a federal court, Waxman said. "The title of this bill suggests that it would streamline the processing of habeas corpus cases," Waxman said. But Waxman said he found "something else entirely: Section after section of the bill would eliminate federal court jurisdiction to decide federal questions" in such cases. Attorney Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, which had played a key role in freeing more than 100 wrongly convicted people — eight of whom had been on death row — said a number of those people would be in prison or dead if the proposed legislation had been in effect. Scheck told the Judiciary Committee that the proposed law turned the lesson of those cases "on its head. It threatens to make what is already a torturous, difficult mountain for the wrongfully convicted to climb into a wholly impenetrable steel wall." "Finding innocence is a fits-and-starts kind of process," said New York attorney George Kendall, who has litigated death penalty cases for more than two decades. "Habeas corpus was never supposed to be about innocence alone. It was always about whether the state courts faithfully applied federal constitutional law. "This bill turns that on its head," insulating state courts from any meaningful review, he said. Six people exonerated as a result of federal habeas corpus proceedings attended the first Senate hearing, including Thomas Goldstein, who was freed last year after 24 years in prison for a wrongful conviction in a Long Beach murder. Goldstein's challenges to his conviction fell on deaf ears in state court. But five federal judges in California who reviewed the case found that his constitutional rights had been violated by prosecutors who used an unreliable jailhouse informant and by police who steered an eyewitness into incorrectly identifying Goldstein. \- - - - -