- AG as executioner
Now here was a scary story: Under a little-noticed provision of last year's reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act, Alberto Gonzales was about to get important new powers in death penalty cases. Specifically, he would have the ability to shorten the time that death row inmates have to appeal convictions to federal courts (that authority had been held by federal judges). Now it's true that the average inmate spends more than 10 years on death row, but it's also true that the use of DNA testing is raising new concerns about the fairness of the death penalty. Gonzales is gone, of course, but the fast-tracking statute is still here, and about to be put into effect. "This is the Bush administration throwing down the gauntlet and saying, 'We are going to speed up executions,' " said Kathryn Kase, a Houston lawyer and co-chair of the death-penalty committee for the National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers. An NPR story this morning lays out some of the issues, as does a recent LAT story:
Prosecutors say many death penalty cases take far too long to resolve even when the issue of guilt is clear. Especially in the West, where the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has blocked many executions, cases can take decades to wind through the courts. In its most recent term, the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in three cases in which the 9th Circuit had reversed the sentence. One of the cases involved a two-time Arizona murderer who told the sentencing judge: "If you want to give me the death penalty, just bring it right on." He was sentenced in 1990.
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About 3,350 people are on death row in the U.S., including more than 600 in California. Most were sentenced in state courts, but death cases almost always end up being reviewed by federal judges too. It is impossible to estimate how many inmates might be affected. Some with appeals pending could see their cases shortened. "Cases in the system for 20 years in federal court, it will not affect those," said Cattani. But "it will prevent those from happening in the future." The procedures would cut to six months, instead of a year, the time that death row inmates have to file federal appeals once their cases have been resolved in the state courts. It would also impose strict guidelines on federal judges for deciding such inmates' petitions. Federal district judges would have 450 days, appeals courts 120 days. Proponents say that would prevent foot-dragging by liberal judges.
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| 08:21 AM Sep 22, 2007 | Email the Daily Dragon | Email this Article | Post Comments |
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