Post by Anja Nieser on Oct 1, 2006 6:34:11 GMT -5
Protect our rights----Beware the back-door effort to undermine
constitutional protections, warn Timothy K. Lewis and William S. Sessions
We have both served for many years on the federal bench, as trial and
appellate judges, and one of us as director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. We feel compelled to sound the alarm about a proposed
radical assault on the great writ of habeas corpus that Congress may take
up this week before it adjourns for the election campaign.
This assault would dramatically limit the ability of federal courts to
protect individuals who may have been wrongly convicted of a crime and
sentenced to prison or even death. We applaud Senate Judiciary Committee
Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., for recently condemning a pending proposal
to deny habeas rights to those held as "enemy combatants." We urge him to
do the same for those convicted of crimes in the United States.
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."
The current measure would add at least two new and pernicious provisions.
First, it would give the prosecution an important advantage by
accelerating review of federal habeas petitions and by making it virtually
impossible to raise new claims discovered after an extremely short 6-month
statute of limitations has expired.
This "fast-track" treatment is taken from the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and
Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), which entitles states to procedural
advantages in capital cases only if they have provided competent lawyers
and reasonable funding for important post-conviction reviews. Congress and
the courts have repeatedly found that inexperienced, underfunded and
incompetent lawyers have contributed dramatically to the mistakes and
injustices that have caused many erroneous convictions. Just a few months
ago, Congress amended AEDPA, but it left intact the requirement that
states establish satisfactory post-conviction systems for death row
inmates or else be denied these procedural benefits.
The current proposal simply ignores this requirement and, in certain cases
in which a public safety officer or judge is killed, provides states with
these procedural advantages without requiring they ensure that potentially
meritorious claims of constitutional error were adequately developed and
considered by state courts.
Second, the proposal strips the federal courts of their jurisdiction to
hear sentencing claims in these kinds of cases. If this proposal had been
law in the past, federal courts would not have been able to correct
egregious constitutional errors.
During the past several years, the Supreme Court has correctly reversed a
number of death sentences because of egregious sentencing error, either
because of hapless representation by defense counsel, as in Williams v.
Taylor, Wiggins v. Smith and Rompilla v. Beard, or because prosecutors
broke the law and suppressed the fact that a key sentencing witness was a
paid informant and committed perjury before the jury, as in Banks v.
Dretke. Do we want someone executed where it turns out his death sentence
was based on inaccurate, perjured testimony?
The current proposal would prevent the courts from granting relief in such
cases in the future and substantially inhibit a certain class of
individuals from seeking to vindicate their constitutional rights. It also
portends future bills granting states similar procedural advantages in
cases involving other classes of individuals, such as those convicted of
killing children, other government officials, etc.
In the end, we fear, the great writ that protects us all will be nothing
more than swiss cheese, with more holes than cheese.
(source : Pittburgh Post-Gazette -- Timothy K. Lewis, a former judge of
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and of the U.S. District
Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, is a partner at Schnader
Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP in Washington, D.C. William S. Sessions, a
former director of the FBI and chief judge of U.S. District Court for the
Western District of Texas, is a partner at Holland and Knight law firm in
Washington, D.C.)
constitutional protections, warn Timothy K. Lewis and William S. Sessions
We have both served for many years on the federal bench, as trial and
appellate judges, and one of us as director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. We feel compelled to sound the alarm about a proposed
radical assault on the great writ of habeas corpus that Congress may take
up this week before it adjourns for the election campaign.
This assault would dramatically limit the ability of federal courts to
protect individuals who may have been wrongly convicted of a crime and
sentenced to prison or even death. We applaud Senate Judiciary Committee
Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., for recently condemning a pending proposal
to deny habeas rights to those held as "enemy combatants." We urge him to
do the same for those convicted of crimes in the United States.
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."
The current measure would add at least two new and pernicious provisions.
First, it would give the prosecution an important advantage by
accelerating review of federal habeas petitions and by making it virtually
impossible to raise new claims discovered after an extremely short 6-month
statute of limitations has expired.
This "fast-track" treatment is taken from the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and
Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), which entitles states to procedural
advantages in capital cases only if they have provided competent lawyers
and reasonable funding for important post-conviction reviews. Congress and
the courts have repeatedly found that inexperienced, underfunded and
incompetent lawyers have contributed dramatically to the mistakes and
injustices that have caused many erroneous convictions. Just a few months
ago, Congress amended AEDPA, but it left intact the requirement that
states establish satisfactory post-conviction systems for death row
inmates or else be denied these procedural benefits.
The current proposal simply ignores this requirement and, in certain cases
in which a public safety officer or judge is killed, provides states with
these procedural advantages without requiring they ensure that potentially
meritorious claims of constitutional error were adequately developed and
considered by state courts.
Second, the proposal strips the federal courts of their jurisdiction to
hear sentencing claims in these kinds of cases. If this proposal had been
law in the past, federal courts would not have been able to correct
egregious constitutional errors.
During the past several years, the Supreme Court has correctly reversed a
number of death sentences because of egregious sentencing error, either
because of hapless representation by defense counsel, as in Williams v.
Taylor, Wiggins v. Smith and Rompilla v. Beard, or because prosecutors
broke the law and suppressed the fact that a key sentencing witness was a
paid informant and committed perjury before the jury, as in Banks v.
Dretke. Do we want someone executed where it turns out his death sentence
was based on inaccurate, perjured testimony?
The current proposal would prevent the courts from granting relief in such
cases in the future and substantially inhibit a certain class of
individuals from seeking to vindicate their constitutional rights. It also
portends future bills granting states similar procedural advantages in
cases involving other classes of individuals, such as those convicted of
killing children, other government officials, etc.
In the end, we fear, the great writ that protects us all will be nothing
more than swiss cheese, with more holes than cheese.
(source : Pittburgh Post-Gazette -- Timothy K. Lewis, a former judge of
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and of the U.S. District
Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, is a partner at Schnader
Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP in Washington, D.C. William S. Sessions, a
former director of the FBI and chief judge of U.S. District Court for the
Western District of Texas, is a partner at Holland and Knight law firm in
Washington, D.C.)