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Protect Judicial Checks and Balances
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the Streamlined Procedures Act (S. 1088 and H.R. 3035) as soon as this week. The Streamlined Procedures Act would nearly eliminate the right to habeas corpus, the appeals process by which people held in custody may argue to a federal court that they are innocent or that their constitutional rights were violated. It is the process by which many wrongfully convicted people are freed. It is also the means by which issues such as racial bias in state courts and prosecutorial misconduct are addressed. It is a basic human right, enshrined by the founders in the U.S. Constitution. Introduced by Senator Kyl (R-Arizona) and Representative Lungren (R-California), the Streamlined Procedures Act would create new procedural hurdles solely to prevent federal judges from looking at the evidence and listening to the arguments in the case. The bill is full of procedural traps, laid to catch the unwary prisoner who files his or her petition without the help of an attorney. If this bill passes, it's clear that innocent people will remain imprisoned for years, or worse yet, be executed. Racism and other fundamental violations of the Constitution will go unremedied. Take action! Contact your legislators today and urge them to oppose the Streamlined Procedures Act.
Dear [ Decision Maker ] , As your constituent, I strongly urge you to oppose the Streamlined Procedures Act (S. 1088 and H.R. 3035), sponsored by Senator Kyl (R-Arizona) and Representative Lungren (R-California), as introduced and as amended by Senator Specter. The chief justices of 48 state supreme courts, including Chief Justice Ron George of California, have voted to oppose this bill because of their concern that it will result in innocent people remaining imprisoned for life or even being executed for crimes they did not commit. These justices recognize that the federal courts play a crucial role in protecting the rights of the innocent and in preventing abuses in the state courts, abuses such as racial bias in jury selection and prosecutorial misconduct. Since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, at least 121 people have been nearly executed following a wrongful conviction. With more cases emerging, now is not the time to close the courthouse doors on people asserting that they were wrongfully convicted. Review by independent federal courts is essential to make sure that our system is working the way that it should. Our justice system relies on checks and balances like this to protect innocent people. Again, I strongly urge you to oppose the Streamlined Procedures Act (S. 1088 and H.R. 3035) and protect checks and balances in the federal court system. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this important issue.
Sincerely, |
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| Background Information |
Legislation to gut federal review of criminal cases and erode safeguards established by the Innocence Protection Act was introduced in the House and Senate and appears to be on a fast-track toward passage. The Streamlined Procedures Act (S. 1088, H.R. 3035), sponsored by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) in the Senate and Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) in the House, would profoundly change the criminal appeals process and effectively kill the writ of habeas corpus. The Senate Judiciary Committee took the bill up again on Thursday, September 29th.
The Streamlined Procedures Act will do nothing to streamline the federal appeals process; rather, it will bog down the federal courts and delay justice to victims of crime. Contrary to the title of the legislation, the Streamlined Procedures Act is a radical measure that would overturn a whole series of Supreme Court decisions, increase the number of habeas corpus petitions, complicate and delay litigation, disregard long-established principles of federalism, and invite constitutional challenges on the theory that it impairs the independence of the federal courts. The sweep of the bill is incredibly broad, applying not just to capital cases, but also to all state criminal cases, creating even more of a legal bottleneck.
The Streamlined Procedures Act undermines recent bipartisan action by Congress to address inaccuracy in the criminal justice system and conflicts with the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). In 2004, with the passage of the Innocence Protection Act, Congress acknowledged the need for additional safeguards and oversight to protect against inaccuracies and injustice in our criminal justice system. However, by limiting federal review of cases, the Streamlined Procedures Act will erode these safeguards and provide less oversight, potentially leading to more errors and more wrongful convictions. The bill is also inconsistent with AEDPA, which was passed by Congress in 1996. This means years of litigation to resolve those inconsistencies.
The Streamlined Procedures Act is bad for victims of crime and bad for innocent people in prison. Victims want justice, not just finality. Victims of crime do not want innocent people to be imprisoned or executed. They want the true perpetrators apprehended and punished. The law would preclude claims brought by wrongfully convicted prisoners, increasing the risk that these individuals will be executed or languish in prison. The provisions in the bill are particularly troublesome given the numbers of people who have been exonerated in recent years.
Due process is needed to prove innocence. Most prisoners who have been exonerated reach that point after first proving that they received egregiously incompetent representation or were victims of prosecutorial misconduct that undermined the reliability of their conviction at trial. All too often, federal habeas corpus proceedings provide the only opportunity to establish constitutional violations that occurred at trial and pave the way for additional proceedings at which innocence can be proven.
