SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 16A

LENGTH: 388 words

HEADLINE: Tighter rules were needed

BYLINE: Orrin G. Hatch

BODY:
Until recently, death-penalty foes routinely undermined the public's
confidence in our criminal justice system by launching frivolous
attacks on lawfully imposed sentences.


Though our Constitution both recognizes the death penalty as a
punishment for the most heinous of crimes and leaves to the states
the decision whether to have the death penalty, clever lawyers
have used the federal courts to turn these foundational principles
on their heads. Misusing the cherished right of habeas corpus,
the procedure to free a wrongfully imprisoned person, those advocates
were achieving delays of lawful, just and final state judgments
by 15 or more years.
This sad chapter is now closing. In 1996, I co-authored a measure
that Congress enacted and President Clinton signed that preserves
habeas-corpus claims for prisoners with legitimate claims, but
curbs meritless challenges to lawfully imposed convictions and
sentences.


Before this law passed, a committee chaired by the late Supreme
Court justice Lewis Powell Jr. cited extraordinary delays and
an abuse of the litigation process in concluding that the federal
habeas process "hampered justice without improving the quality
of adjudication." The results of such abuse were stark: a lack
of closure for victims' families and a drain on state criminal
justice resources.


Congress' reforms ensure that federal courts can devote valuable
time and resources to handling meritorious claims, and less time
responding to claims brought only to delay a just sentence. The
law sets time limits to eliminate unnecessary delays and prohibits
repeated petitions that make unreasonable claims.


Alarmists predict the new rules will shut the door on innocents
erroneously convicted of capital crimes. This could not be further
from the truth. Congress' reforms carefully preserve the most
important function of habeas corpus, to guarantee that innocent
persons will not be illegally imprisoned or executed, and explicitly
permit repeated petitions that clearly and convincingly present
new evidence of innocence.


Our criminal justice system is unparalleled in its protections
of the accused. With these much-needed reforms, we have added
the element of finality to lawfully imposed sentences, which is
a hallmark of true justice.


LOAD-DATE: January 20, 2000