The Streamlined Procedures Act of 2005

Anti-death penalty advocates often cite as one of the reasons they oppose the death penalty is because of the cost. They distort the issue by claiming “the death penalty costs more than a life sentence”.

This is only partly true. The reason that it could eventually cost more to put someone to death than it would have otherwise cost to incarcerate that same person for life is because of the lengthy appeals process. Murderers sentenced to death have their cases reviewed “by not only a jury of 12 of their peers but up to 23 different judges…perhaps even more”.

Whereas the number of appeals—mandatory and otherwise—for a typical inmate sentenced to life is considerably fewer.

Thus, it’s not the cost of incarcerating a death row inmate vs. a lifer—it costs the same amount to keep them locked up in a cell—it’s the cost of going back and forth to court.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Arizona, to introduce the Streamlined Procedures Act (SPA) of 2005 (HR 3035 and S 1088) in the Senate this spring:

“Many federal habeas corpus cases require 10, 15, or even 20 years to complete,” he told colleagues on May 19. “These delays burden the courts and deny justice to defendants with meritorious claims. They are also deeply unfair to victims of serious, violent crime.”

And these delays are also the reason that, as the left claims, “it cost more to sentence someone to death than it does to sentence them to life”.

Jordan Smith, writing for the Austin Chronicle is critical of SPA and its proponents (of course, Smith was critical of the nomination of Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court too, stating, “Yeah, that’s what we needed … another middle-aged white guy.”)

In All Aboard for the Death Penalty Express: Republicans aim to kill federal criminal appeals law, Smith writes:

If a contingent of congressional Republicans have their way, federal law governing all criminal appeals will be gutted – opening up an express lane to the Texas death chamber and making it inevitable that an innocent person will be executed.

No, Jordan, it does not lead to the “inevitable” execution of an innocent person, as we’ll get to shortly. What it does do is reduce the cost associated with the death penalty, and shortens the amount of time that a guilty killer gets to remain alive after his sentence has been rendered.

At issue are congressional limits on criminal appeals to the federal courts –– where, for example, questions of ineffective counsel and claims of prosecutorial misconduct are adjudicated, and, more often than not, lay the groundwork for claims of innocence, new evidence testing, or the granting of a new trial.

It is also where the most egregious examples of stalling the inevitable death of a guilty murderer takes place. Very few habeas corpus appeals have anything do with establishing the convicted killer’s innocence—rather it is their lawyers attempt to get them off-death row (and into a life-sentence, because they know their client is still guilty, regardless of the alleged ineffectiveness of previous counsel).

Smith then claims that the sponsors of SPA “have seemingly decided the remedy to this sort of delayed justice is to eliminate the judicial process altogether.”, which simply isn’t true. And Jordan knows it, because he refutes and contradicts himself in the very next paragraph:

Under the SPA, the only criminal cases that would earn any federal habeas review are those in which a defendant can show three things: one, that there are “new facts” in the case that were never brought to light through the “due diligence” of attorneys; two, that those facts establish the defendant’s innocence by “clear and convincing evidence”; and, three, that “but for a constitutional violation, the defendant wouldn’t have been convicted,” Marcus says.

In other words, there is still plenty of judicial review. SPA just insists that habeas corpus appeals are grounded in something other than delaying tactics.

Sen. John Cornyn — R-Texas, furthers this by stating:

What we are talking about here is not denying people access to reasonable review of their case, but we’re talking about abuse of the habeas process in federal court,” he told the committee on July 28. The “fact is” that habeas review “has become rife with gamesmanship” and is used to delay the imposition of a fair sentence. “In my state, from the time … the most hardened criminals are convicted of the most heinous crimes … their case is reviewed by not only a jury of 12 of their peers but up to 23 different judges … perhaps even more.”

Smith found someone to refute that claim though:

Just because a number of people have reviewed the case, however, doesn’t mean it has been justly resolved, points out SPA opponent John Whitehead, president of the conservative civil liberties organization the Rutherford Institute.

What Whitehead and Smith means is, that a case has not been “reviewed by enough people” and has not been “justly resolved” until you can find someone to finally side with your client and against the death penalty…no matter how long or how much money it takes.

Posted by Robbie Cooper on Wednesday, August 17th, 2005 | Trackback |