The for­mer Director of the FBI, William Sessions (pic­tured), along with Timothy Lewis, a for­mer judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, called on mem­bers of Congress to refrain from bar­ring death row inmates and oth­er defen­dants from the full access to the fed­er­al courts in their appeals. Some leg­is­la­tors have pro­posed elim­i­nat­ing fed­er­al habeas cor­pus review in many cas­es, and bar­ring access to the fed­er­al courts to many of those rais­ing chal­lenges to their death sen­tences. The authors of the op-ed wrote, in part:

We take a back seat to no one in our sup­port for strong law enforce­ment, but we are equal­ly com­mit­ted to our coun­try’s long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to fair tri­als and con­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guards. These safe­guards are essen­tial to mak­ing as sure as pos­si­ble that when we charge some­one with a crime, we have the right per­son and that that per­son, if con­vict­ed, receives the sen­tence he or she deserves. 

All Americans should be alarmed at the many recent exon­er­a­tions of inno­cent peo­ple who have served years in prison or on death row. Not only have we locked up the wrong peo­ple, but the true per­pe­tra­tors remain free to inflict more harm. 

As a result, we are pro­found­ly dis­turbed about reports of a new and mis­guid­ed assault on the writ of habeas cor­pus. In a back-door action, the pro­vi­sion in ques­tion would be attached to entire­ly unre­lat­ed leg­is­la­tion in the few remain­ing days before Congress adjourns. It has nev­er been exam­ined by any con­gres­sion­al com­mit­tee, so no sen­a­tor or rep­re­sen­ta­tive has heard what no doubt would be an out­cry of pub­lic oppo­si­tion against it. 

The pro­vi­sion would cov­er much of the same ground as the Streamlined Procedures Act, an ill-con­ceived bill that gen­er­at­ed enor­mous oppo­si­tion last year. For the first time, both the Judicial Conference, rep­re­sent­ing the coun­try’s fed­er­al judges, and the Conference of Chief Justices, rep­re­sent­ing the chief jus­tices of all states, force­ful­ly opposed the act because it would have stripped the fed­er­al courts of much of their juris­dic­tion to hear habeas petitions. 

Numerous oth­er rea­son­able voic­es across the polit­i­cal spec­trum also opposed this leg­is­la­tion. They did so because, as the chief jus­tices stat­ed, ​“The wrong­ful con­vic­tion of an inno­cent per­son leaves the actu­al per­pe­tra­tor free and under­mines pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in our crim­i­nal justice system.”

(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sept. 26, 2006). See 

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