It is very difficult for the average person to see and know what is
going on within the justice system. Most people don’t know what a Habeas
Corpus  appeal is or that it was considered to be the 'Great Writ'.
Translated from the Latin it means - 'you have the body', a procedural
protection to release anyone unlawfully imprisoned. It’s our ancient
legal safeguard the founders intentionally retained from English law.
It’s used by the innocent because its purpose is to determine whether
'due process of law' was followed when a person is deprived of life or
liberty. Few know the hatchet job that has been done on Habeas Corpus
before and now including the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty
Act of 1996.

For years our fair-minded conservative politicians have complained about
multiple habeas corpus petitions filed by some death row inmates. These
politicians claim such petitions are just a means to delay the death
sentence so rightly deserved by the individual. The truth is that the
courts have ended most of these delays by themselves. Not satisfied, US
Senate conservatives tacked habeas reform onto the anti-terrorism
legislation that President Clinton sought in the wake of the Oklahoma
bombing. It was your classic trade-off. Clinton got expanded powers for
the FBI and the conservatives got curbs on habeas.

What the Effective Death Penalty Act does is place expedited and
unrealistic time constraints on habeas petitions by prisoners. It also
gives state court opinions on federal law more weight and limits the
time that federal judges can take to make rulings. Furthermore, federal
courts are severely restricted as to what issues they can rule on.

Since Americans are angry and confused about delays in justice, the U.S.
Justice Department and the National Center for States Court’s
conservative researcher Roger Hanson did a report that found death
penalty habeas petitions were not the cause of federal court dockets.
Less than one percent of federal habeas cases review state court death
sentences.

The complaint of multiple death penalty habeas petitions is a red
herring. Many petitions in death penalty cases in Arizona are about
ineffectual counsel. That’s because Arizona, like some Southern states,
especially in rural counties, won’t provide two experienced death
penalty lawyers with enough time (as the American Bar Association
recommends) and money for experts and investigators.

In other words, Arizona lawmakers are trying to doctor the problem
backward. Endless appeals could be reduced by ensuring the trial is fair
the first time around. But if the state wants to take advantage of the
fast-track restriction of the Anti-Terrorism bill, it must enact
legislation or rules for the selection and payment of lawyers appointed
to represent death row inmates in habeas cases. The standards require
that lawyer to practice for five years, three of which must have been in
'criminal appeals or post-conviction proceedings', before appointment to
a habeas case. This is difficult at best.

The death penalty is unfair for many reasons. But the most glaring and
costly is that by being cheap up front, victims endure lengthy appeals,
the innocent are more likely to be convicted, and taxpayers are ripped
off in the long run.

With the flawed direction Arizona lawmakers are taking on capital
punishment, crime victims have just as much right to be outraged as
opponents of the death penalty. So in Arizona (and other states) the
fast-track rules that shorten the appeal time and thus the law against
the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel can not be instituted.
And there are certainly going to be numerous challenges that will result
in slowing executions as opposed to speeding them up.

In Arizona, rehabilitation programs are non-existent. Drug treatments
are out, more prison beds are added every day along with tents,
draconian sentences are handed down, the death row chain gang thrives
and executions are increasing. law enforcement has gotten just about
everything on its 'wish-list' while federal money continues to flood
into the police and prosecutor’s budgets almost faster than it can be
absorbed.

This state in the past few years has become by far the most hard-nosed
when it comes to anti-crime measures. It has pioneered tough crime-
fighting tools and reforms like victim’s rights, mandatory sentencing
and truth-in-sentencing to a receptive electorate. In essence we have
become a mini-experiment for the punishment and incapacitation model of
crime control. But why aren’t these conservative headline-grabbing
public officials stepping forward to take credit for reduced crime
rates, especially for violent crime? The reason is because crime is not
significantly lower and people aren’t less afraid. Despite a massive
incapacitation program for criminal offenders in this state, in some
inhospitable prisons, jails and tents, not much has fundamentally
changed.

By the way, 'incapacitation' is the policy notion that crime is
drastically reduced by locking up crime offenders for long periods, but
what this simplistic philosophy actually does is to bankrupt the
taxpayers. Three strikes policies in other states are doing just that.
One big winner is the burgeoning corrections/prison construction
industry. It’s the biggest industry in the state and the country. With
the downfall of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, the
industrial/military complex that runs this country had to be replaced.
Enter the correction/prison industry. It’s good business. No one wants
to reduce it. Why do you think they eliminated parole? - to keep the
beds full and create demand for more prisons. It’s a vicious circle.
More arrests, more convictions, more prisoners, more beds, more prisons,
more food, more guards, more kickbacks, more players and more power.

The reason these elected officials aren’t telling you where we’re going
is because they don’t know. If you don’t believe me, start asking them
when we are going to turn the corner on crime? When is the average
citizen going to feel safer? We will never arrest, prosecute and
incarcerate our way out of this problem. How many millions more have to
be imprisoned? When will violent crime decrease? When will the
Department of Corrections stop being the fastest growing business in the
state? How many executions have to occur before the public realizes that
killing our own citizens does little except to show the rest of the
world the barbaric nature of our society? The shame of it all in the
name of justice!

     ................................................

Richard Rossi, August 1996