Judges Oppose Streamlined Procedures Act
State Court chief justices from around the country had their annual conference this week. Among the resolutions passed was one opposing the Streamlined Procedures Act, a bill that would limit death penalty appeals. The only "nay" vote came from Wallace Jefferson, the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, who said he hadn't had time to study the bill.
This bill is a bad idea. It would in effect kill habeas rights for prisoners - the chance for federal court review of a state court conviction and sentence.
Prisoners on death row generally reach federal courts using a legal petition known as habeas corpus — a centuries-old method of challenging allegedly illegal imprisonment. The petition gives an inmate a day in court to assert that his constitutional rights were violated at trial, leading to a serious error in the case.
The pending measures "may preclude state defendants in both capital and noncapital" cases from seeking relief in the federal courts "and may deprive the federal courts of jurisdiction in the vast majority of these matters, all with unknown consequences for the state courts and the administration of justice," the chief justices said in their resolution, passed at the group's annual meeting, in Charleston, S.C.
As I said here, this bill gets it a** backwards:
One of the principal reasons death penalty appeals take so long is that people languish on death row for years before a lawyer is appointed to represent them. If we raised the compensation levels and provided adeqate expense money for forensic testing and experts, more qualified lawyers would volunteer to defend death cases on appeal and in habeas proceedings and they wouldn't last so long.
Also, if we raised the standards for representation of capital defendants at the trial level, and required DNA testing where such evidence exists, and made the ABA standards for qualification mandatory, there would be far fewer claims of ineffective assistance of counsel at the trial level.
We should not do anything legislatively that might increase the risk that an innocent person will be put to death. It's not the American way.
| < Homeland Security: Wise Up | Racist Drops Out of Council Election > |
