Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I would like to thank Bob Dole for his strong leadership. It was an honor to work with him. Arlen Specter for his legal acumen, Joe Biden for his statesmanship and Don Nickles and James Inhofe for their able input. All of these Senators were vital to the passage of this bill. I would also like to commend the following staffers for their long, hard work: Democrats: Cynthia Hogan, Ankor Gouel, Chris Putals, Demetra Lambros, Mimi Murphy, Tracy Doherty, and Mike O'Leary. Republicans: Mike O'Neill and Mike Kennedy. These two men worked, literally, around the clock. Also, Ashley Disque, John Gibbons, Dennis Shea, Richard Hertling, Lee Otis, Eric Mayfield, and Manus Cooney. All of these people helped make this bill possible. The President called on Congress for swift action, and we delivered. Mr. DOLE. Madam President, immediately after the Oklahoma City tragedy, President Clinton was right on target when he said that the perpetrators of this vicious crime should face justice that was ``swift, certain, and severe.'' I am pleased to report to the American people and to the President that, with today's passage of the antiterrorism bill, we are one giant step closer to achieving this important goal. The most critical element of this bill, and the one that bears most directly on the tragic events in Oklahoma City, is the provision reforming the so-called habeas corpus rules. By imposing filing deadlines on all death row inmates, and by limiting condemned killers convicted in State or Federal court to one Federal habeas petition--one bite of the apple--these landmark reforms will go a long, long way to streamline the lengthy appeals process and bridge the gap between crime and punishment in America. It is dead wrong that we must wait 8, or 9, or even 10 years before a capital sentence is actually carried out. And, of course, it is terribly unjust to the innocent victims of violent crime and their families. As I said yesterday, if the Federal Government prosecutes the Oklahoma City case and the death penalty is sought and imposed, the execution of the sentence could take as a little as 1 year once these reforms are enacted into law. I want to thank President Clinton for his efforts this past week in discrouraging Democratic amendments. No doubt about it, the President's involvement has helped speed up the process here in the Senate. I particularly commend the President for finally coming around to the view that habeas reform is an essential ingredient of any serious anti- terrorism plan. I want to thank the two managers, Senator Hatch and Senator Biden, for their persistence in guiding this legislation through the Senate. On this side of aisle, Senator Hatch has provided the intellectual glue that has kept this effort together. And, of course, I want to thank my two colleagues from Oklahoma, Senator Nickles and Senator Inhofee, whose help in this process has also been invaluable. Finally, I commend the good people of Oklahoma City, who self- sacrifice and resiliency during this very difficult time has been an inspiration for us all. The families of some of the bombing victims travelled all the way to Washington this past Monday to let us know that we must take action now to put an end to the endless delays and appeals that have done so much to weaken public confidence in our system of criminal justice. It is gratifying to see that their efforts have had such a profound impact here in the Senate. Mr. HATFIELD. Madam President, it has been a difficult process, but we have now reached the conclusion of this worthy debate. I want to commend Majority Leader Dole and Minority Leader Daschle and the managers of this legislation, Chairman Hatch and [[Page S7878]] Senator Biden, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, for their skill and resolve in moving this important and complex measure through the Senate. It is proper for the Senate, at the request of the President, to undertake this legislative action to put in place safeguards to ensure, to the extent we can, that terrorism does not occur in the future. It is my hope that this legislation will provide one more avenue toward the national healing that is needed in the aftermath of one of the most senseless and disturbing acts in the history of man. I have joined with all my colleagues to condemn this act in the harshest terms. However, despite my abhorrence of this horrible crime, I am unable to support this legislation. As many of my colleagues are aware, I am a long-time opponent of capital punishment. This legislation, under section 2332b, on page 7 of the bill, provides for the imposition of the death penalty in the following manner: (1) Whoever violates this section shall, in addition to the punishment provided for any other crime charged in the indictment, be punished-- (A) if death results to any person, by death, or by life imprisonment for any term of years or for life; Madam President, I could support this provision if the clause ``by death'' were excluded. Because it has not been deleted, and because the death penalty is so repugnant me, I am unable to support this legislation which has many meritorious provisions. I would like my colleagues to take note of a recent event in the country of South Africa. I am informed that the highest court in South Africa has struck down the death penalty in that country on the basis that it constitutes cruel and inhumane punishment. In his opinion, Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson said, ``Retribution cannot be accorded the same weight under our constitution as the right to life and dignity.'' He went on to make a point made by death penalty opponents on this floor many times: ``It has not been shown that the death sentence would be materially more effective to deter or prevent murder than the alternative sentence of life imprisonment.'' I believe it is time for this country to follow the lead of the South Africans. I have long held that capital punishment is a barbaric penalty, certainly one that should be abhorrent to a society such as our own. I have marveled at the strides the South Africans have made over the past decade. It was not too many years ago that the United States put great pressure on the Government of South Africa to improve their horrible human rights record. While this new decision is being met with the expected cries of opposition, it now appears to me that the South Africans are setting an example for us on human rights. I merely make note of this enlightenment in South Africa as this body continues down the road of support for capital punishment. It is my hope that some day my colleagues will realize this is a failed, primitive and sickening policy. I regret that, on that basis, I am unable to support S. 735. the comprehensive terrorism prevention act Mr. MOYNIHAN. Madam President, I am deeply concerned that the Senate has chosen in this legislation to radically alter the ancient writ of habeas corpus an subjiciendum. Four separate Democratic amendments that would have moderated the bill's extreme habeas corpus provisions were rejected today. It is troubling that the Senate has undertaken to revise the Great Writ of Liberty in a bill designed as a response to the Oklahoma City bombing. Habeas corpus reform has very little to do with terrorism. The Oklahoma City bombing was a Federal crime and will be tried in Federal courts. The controversy over habeas corpus is a result of excess litigation by State court prisoners who believe they were wrongly convicted in State courts. According to the Emergency Committee to Save Habeas Corpus, a group of 100 of the Nation's most distinguished attorneys, scholars, and civic leaders, ``Cutting back the enforcement of constitutional liberties for people unlawfully held in State custody is neither necessary to habeas reform nor relevant to terrorism.'' Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution provides that: The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. The Habeas Corpus Act of 1867 permitted State prisoners convicted in State courts to challenge the constitutionality of their imprisonment in Federal district court. This is a right we have honored in the United States for well over a century. The legislation before us will require our Federal courts to defer to State court judgments unless a State court's application of Federal law is unreasonable. Our Federal courts will be powerless to correct State court decisions--even if a State court decision is wrong. The bill requires deference by the Federal courts unless a State court's decision is unreasonably wrong. This is a standard that will effectively preclude Federal review. This Senator understands the need for habeas corpus reform, and I would support legislation to impose reasonable limitations on appeals. But this bill goes far too far. It will in many cases transform the State courts--not the Federal courts established under article III of the U.S. Constitution--into the arbiters of Federal constitutionality. This legislation will eviscerate the writ of habeas corpus, and that is something this Senator in good conscience must oppose. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the Emergency Committee to Save Habeas Corpus, and the list of its members, be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: Emergency Committee To Save Habeas Corpus, Washington, DC, June 1, 1995. Hon. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC. Dear Senator Moynihan: We understand that the Senate may act next week on the habeas corpus provisions in Senator Dole's terrorism legislation. Among these provisions is a requirement that federal courts must defer to state courts incorrectly applying federal constitutional law, unless it can be said that the state ruling was ``unreasonably'' incorrect. This is a variation of past proposals to strip the federal courts of the power to enforce the Constitution when the state court's interpretation of it, though clearly wrong, had been issued after a ``full and fair'' hearing. The Emergency Committee was formed in 1991 to fight this extreme proposal. Our membership consists of both supporters and opponents of the death penalty, Republicans and Democrats, united in the belief that the federal habeas corpus process can be dramatically streamlined without jeopardizing its constitutional core. At a time when proposals to curtail civil liberties in the name of national security are being widely viewed with suspicion, we believe it is vital to ensure that habeas corpus--the means by which all civil liberties are enforced--is not substantively diminished. The habeas corpus reform bill President Clinton proposed in 1993, drafted in close cooperation with the nation's district attorneys and state attorneys general, appropriately recognizes this point. It would codify the long-standing principal of independent federal review of constitutional questions, and specifically reject the ``full and fair'' deference standard. Independent federal review of state court judgments has existed since the founding of the Republic, whether through writ of error or writ of habeas corpus. It has a proud history of guarding against injustices born of racial prejudice and intolerance, of saving the innocent from imprisonment or execution, and in the process, ensuring the rights of all law-abiding citizens. Independent federal review was endorsed by the committee chaired by Justice Powell on which all subsequent reform proposals have been based, and the Supreme Court itself specifically considered but declined to require deference to the states, in Wright v. West in 1992. We must emphasize that this issue of deference to state rulings has absolutely no bearing on the swift processing of terrorism offenses in the federal system. For federal inmates, the pending habeas reform legislation proposes dramatic procedural reforms but appropriately avoids any curtailment of the federal courts' power to decide federal constitutional issues. This same framework of reform will produce equally dramatic results in state cases. Cutting back the enforcement of constitutional liberties for people unlawfully held in state custody is neither necessary to habeas reform nor relevant to terrorism. We are confident that the worthwhile goal of streamlining the review of criminal cases can be accomplished without diminishing constitutional liberties. Please support the continuation of independent federal review of federal constitutional claims through habeas corpus. Sincerely, Benjamin Civiletti. [[Page S7879]] Edward H. Levi. Nicholas DeB. Katzenbach. Elliot L. Richardson. ____ Statements on Proposals Requiring Federal Courts in Habeas Corpus Cases to Defer to State Courts on Federal Constitutional Questions Capital cases should be subject to one fair and complete course of collateral review through the state and federal system * * * . Where the death penalty is involved, fairness means a searching and impartial review of the propriety of the sentence--Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., presenting the 1989 report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Habeas Corpus in Capital Cases, chaired by him and appointed by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The federal courts should continue to review de novo mixed and pure questions of federal law. Congress should codify this review standard * * *. Senator Dole's bill [containing the ``full and fair'' deference requirement' would rather straightforwardly eliminate federal habeas jurisdiction over most constitutional claims by state inmates--150 former state and federal prosecutors, in a December 7, 1993 letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Biden and Brooks. Racial distinctions are evident in every aspect of the process that leads to execution * * *. [W]e feverently and respectfully urge a steadfast review by federal judiciary in state death penalties as absolutely essential to ensure justice--Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery, President, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing on capital habeas corpus reform, June 6, 1990. The State court cannot have the last say when it, though on fair consideration and what procedurally may be deemed fairness, may have misconceived a federal constitutional right--Justice Felix Frankfurter, for the Court, in Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 508(1953) [There is no case in which] a state court's incorrect legal determination has ever been allowed to stand because it was reasonable. We have always held that federal courts, even on habeas, have an independent obligation to say what the law is--Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, concurring in Wright v. West, 112 S.Ct. 2482(1992), citing 29 Supreme Court cases and ``many others'' to reject the urging of Justices Thomas, Scalia and Rhenquist to adopt a standard of deference to state courts on federal constitutional matters. ____ Emergency Committee To Save Habeas Corpus chairs Benjamin Civiletti, Former Attorney General of the United States. Nicholas DeB. Katzenbach, Former Attorney General of the United States. Edward H. Levi, Former Attorney General of the United States. Elliot L. Richardson, Former Attorney General of the United States. members Floyd Abrams, Attorney. Robert Abrams, Former Attorney General, New York. Philip S. Anderson, Attorney. Dennis W. Archer, Mayor of Detroit; Former Justice, Michigan Supreme Court. Birch Bayh, Former U.S. Senator, Indiana. Francis X. Bellotti, Former Attorney General, Massachusetts. Lindy Boggs, Former Member of Congress, Louisiana. Hyman Bookbinder, Washington Representative Emeritus, American Jewish Committee. Albert Brewer, Former Governor of Alabama. Allen E. Broussard, Former Justice, California Supreme Court. John Buchanan, Former Member of Congress, Alabama. Haywood Burns, Dean, City University of New York Law School. Guido Calabresi, Dean, Yale Law School. Julius Chambers, Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. L. Stanley Chauvin, Jr., Former President, American Bar Association. Dick Clark, Former United States Senator, Iowa. W.J. Michael Cody, Former Attorney General, Tennessee. William T. Coleman, Jr., Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Joseph Curran, Attorney General, Maryland. John J. Curtin, Jr., Former President, American Bar Association. Lloyd N. Cutler, Former Counsel to the President. Talbot D'Alemberte, Former President, American Bar Association. Samuel Dash, Professor, Georgetown Law School; Former Chief Counsel, Senate Watergate Committee; Former District Attorney of Philadelphia. John A. Dixon, Jr., Former Chief Justice, Louisiana Supreme Court. John Douglas, Former Assistant Attorney General of the United States. Father Robert Drinan, Former Member of Congress, Massachusetts. Thomas Eagleton, Former U.S. Senator, Missouri. Raymond Ehrlich, Former Chief Justice, Florida Supreme Court. Arthur J. England, Jr., Former Justice, Florida Supreme Court. Marvin Frankel, Former U.S. District Judge, New York. John Hope Franklin, Historian. Donald Fraser, Mayor of Minneapolis; Former Member of Congress, Minnesota. Stanley H. Fuld, Former Chief Judge, New York Court of Appeals. Susan Getzendanner, Former U.S. District Judge, Illinois. Joseph I. Giarrusso, Former Superintendent, New Orleans Police Department. John J. Gibbons, Former Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. William A. Grimes, Former Justice, New Hampshire Supreme Court. Joseph R. Grodin, Former Justice, California Supreme Court. Gerald Gunther, Professor, Stanford Law School. William J. Guste, Former Attorney General, Louisiana. Reverend Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., President Emeritus, University of Notre Dame. L. Eades Hogue, Former Trial Attorney, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice. Elizabeth Holtzman, New York City Comptroller; Former Member of Congress, New York. Shirley Hufstedler, Former Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Former U.S. Secretary of Education. Richard J. Hughes, Former Governor and Supreme Court Chief Justice, New Jersey (deceased). Charles J. Hynes, District Attorney for Kings County (Brooklyn), New York. Thomas Johnson, Former County Attorney, Hennepin County, Minnesota. Barbara Jordan, former Member of Congress, Texas. Robert W. Kastenmeier, former Member of Congress, Wisconsin. William W. Kilgarlin, former Justice, Supreme Court of Texas. Coretta Scott King, President, Martin Luther King Center. Lane Kirkland, President, AFL-CIO. Richard H. Kuh, former Manhattan District Attorney. Phillip Kurland, Professor, University of Chicago Law School. Phillip Lacovara, former Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. Shelby Lanier, Jr., Chairman, National Black Police Association. William Leech, former Attorney General, Tennessee. George N. Leighton, former U.S. District Judge, Illinois. Arthur Liman, former Chief Counsel, U.S. Senate Iran/Contra Committee. Hans Linde, former Justice, Oregon Supreme Court. Robert MacCrate, former President, American Bar Association. Charles McC. Mathias, former U.S. Senator, Maryland. Darrell McGraw, Attorney General, West Virginia. Robert S. McNamara, former U.S. Secretary of Defense; former President, World Bank. Jim Mattox, former Attorney General and Member of Congress, Texas. Harry McPherson, former Counsel to the President. Walter F. Mondale, former U.S. Vice President; former U.S. Senator and Attorney General, Minnesota. James Neal, former Chief Watergate Special Prosecutor; former United States Attorney. William G. Paul, General Counsel, Phillips Petroleum Company. John H. Pickering, Attorney. Jack Pope, former Chief Justice, Texas Supreme Court. Edward E. Pringle, former Chief Justice, Colorado Supreme Court. Thomas Railsback, former Member of Congress, Illinois. Joseph Rauh, Attorney (deceased). Robert Raven, former President, American Bar Association. Cruz Reynoso, former Justice, California Supreme Court. Leroy C. Richie, Vice President, General Counsel, Chrysler Corporation. Peter W. Rodino, Jr., former Chairman, U.S. House Judiciary Committee. Stephen Sachs, former Attorney General and former United States Attorney, Maryland. Carl Sagan, Astronomer. Whitney North Seymour, Jr., former United States Attorney, New York. James Shannon, former Attorney General, Massachusetts. Robert L. Shevin, former Attorney General, Florida. Seymour Simon, former Justice, Illinois Supreme Court. Chesterfield Smith, former President, American Bar Association. Nicholas Spaeth, former Attorney General, North Dakota. Robert Spire, former Attorney General, Nebraska (deceased). Geoffrey Stone, Dean, University of Chicago Law School. Alan Sundberg, former Chief Justice, Florida Supreme Court. Leonard v.B. Sutton, former Chief Justice, Colorado Supreme Court. Telford Taylor, Professor, Columbia Law School; former Prosecutor, Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal. James Tierney, former Attorney General, Maine. Joseph D. Tydings, former U.S. Senator and United States Attorney, Maryland. [[Page S7880]] Harold R. Tyler, Jr., former U.S. District Judge, New York; former Deputy Attorney General of the United States. Cyrus Vance, former U.S. Secretry of State. James Vollers, former Judge, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Andrew Young, former Ambassador to the United Nations, former Mayor, Atlanta, Georgia. executive director H. Scott Wallace, 1625 K Street, N.W., Suite 800, Washington, D.C. 20006. Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized. Mr. GRASSLEY. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business briefly for the purpose of introducing a bill. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. (The remarks of Mr. Grassley pertaining to the introduction of S. 888 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'') ____________________
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