The ACLU and Its Opposition To S. 1088
Posted on July 29, 2005
Here is what they say on their site:
The Senate Judiciary Committee today has begun to consider legislation that would strip federal courts of their jurisdiction and take away defendant’s safeguards against being wrongfully convicted and even executed. The committee will continue to consider this legislation after the August recess. The American Civil Liberties Union opposes this bill, saying it unconstitutionally violates the doctrine of Separation of Powers and threatens the independence of the federal judiciary.Senate bill 1088, the Streamlined Procedures Act of 2005, eliminates state prisoners’ ability to access federal courts in order to have their criminal cases reviewed. If passed, it would prevent the federal courts from reviewing many types of legal errors in criminal cases.
“This bill virtually eliminates a state prisoner’s ability to call for a federal court to review their case, if for example, their lawyer fell asleep during trial.” said Jesselyn McCurdy, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. “Inexperienced lawyers, and prosecutorial misconduct, among other things are some of the reasons why convictions are overturned as a result of habeas proceedings. This bill would eliminate state prisoners’ ability to access federal court as a court of last resort.”
Since 1976, when capital punishment was resumed in some states, federal habeas corpus has been the principle means by which the federal courts have forced the states to adhere to constitutional standards for the imposition of the death penalty. Those standards are essential if capital punishment is to be administered in a fair and nondiscriminatory manner. Yet death penalty statutes are complex and state courts often fail to interpret them correctly. Thus, in many cases federal habeas proceedings become the court of last resort for state prisoners with claims of innocence. If S.1088 is enacted many wrongfully convicted people will never have the opportunity to establish their innocence in a federal court.
Currently, courts determine whether states have established competent legal counsel for people sentenced to death. Under S.1088, the U.S. Attorney General, the chief prosecuting officer, would have the authority to decide whether states’ indigent defense systems are providing adequate representation. It is inappropriate for the Attorney General, an unobjective observer, to make this type of decision and this demonstrates that supporters of this legislation are not sincerely interested in providing competent legal representation .
“The bottom line is that this bill strips the federal judiciary of their power by taking away the ability for state prisoners to gain access to the federal courts,” said McCurdy. “This bill should be called ‘the Steam Roller Procedures Act of 2005′ because nothing will be left of habeas corpus in this country if this legislation is passed.”
Steam Roller Procedures Act of 2005, and I thought they didn’t have a sense of humor.
The bill also changes guidelines for the review of Capital Punishment cases, the issuing of clemency, and pardons. The Bill addresses victims rights and Ex Parte Funding requests under the Controlled Substance Act (go figure).
There isn’t a person in this nation who believes in strict penalties for committing crimes against the people that will agree with the ACLU on this. Why? Because we believe in the Do the Crime Do the Time idea.
But the leftists in this country love to put the blame for the plight of the criminal mind on others. Like inexperienced attorneys. According to the ACLU attorneys, all attorneys are inexperienced except them. In typical “progressive elitist” fashion, only they have the intelligence to save the nation. When in fact, they waste their abilities on a system that has failed each time it has been tried.
We support the passage of Senate Bill S. 1088 on the grounds that hopefully it will limit the ability of the federal government to interfere in state matters. And put an end to the continued violations of the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
You can review the provisions yourself in the pdf file. That is straight from the United States Senate not some watered down review by some leftist leaning ACLU attorney who wants you to believe every word that he says.
Dear Lefties,
When are you people going to wise up and realize that your rights are the last thing on the ACLU’s minds. Obstructing progress of this free nation is. And they hide under words like Civil Liberties and Progressive Thought. When in fact it should be Restricting Liberties and Obstructive Thought. Continuing to follow them is a exercised of futility. America has figured them out, and we are now going to take them down.
End of Rant.
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5 Responses to “The ACLU and Its Opposition To S. 1088”
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Lefties are funny sometimes. I’ve found a few that will admit the ACLU has lost its way, but then turn around in the same sentence and defend them. I always get the..”you can speak against them, partly because they protect that right for you.” blah, blah, blah.
Or, my favorite is just the ignorant knee jerk reaction of, “This is just a straight up lie!” They like to ask for evidence that what I’m saying is true, yet provide no evidence that what I am saying is not true. They will side with the ACLU still even if I provide them with strong proof. I even had an ignorant in here the other day that said he was going to renew his NAMBLA membership. What kind of sick twisted humor, (or truth) is that?
I know two people in the blogosphere that consider theirself liberals, who I haven’t lost faith in, and that is gun toting liberal (who I think is not that liberal), and Oklahoma democrat. So far, the rest have been moonbats with no hope. It gets discouraging sometimes. I partly started this blog in the hopes of winning over a few from the left, not to change their party affiliation or beliefs, but to open their eyes to the crazed agenda of the ACLU. I’m starting to lose hope on that front.
Great post, I’ll have to read the pdf file and see exactly what we are looking at here. I’m sure its just like all other legislation in the Senate…good stuff, and pork.
Admittedly, state courts are far from flawless. Thanks to DNA technology, we now know that people get wrongly convicted. And at least in the past, certain Southern police, prosecutors, and judges were not enthusiastic enforcers of equal justice for all. I suspect other courts have had their own biases, but perhaps didn’t achieve the same level of notoriety.
Moreover, it is my understanding that the demands on public defenders is pretty steep. If we are going to complain about the cost that an ACLU lawsuit can impose on an innocent municipality, we can also acknowledge that criminal defense cases are also expensive, and that most defendants have even less resources than municipalities. This is a bona fide problem in the administration of justice. Everyone deserves a fair trial, ESPECIALLY guilty people.
That said, is there any reason to imagine that federal courts suffer from any fewer problems than state courts? I guess permitting state actions to be reviewed in federal court permits one more set of eyes to review them, which might catch some errors. And permitting every case to go to the court of appeals would catch even more! And permitting every case to go to the Supreme Ct. would catch even more! But at what cost? Added expense, added delay, loss of deterrence that would derive from the “swift administration of justice.” There’s gotta be some kind of cost/benefit analysis here.
Our justice system if flawed, as any human system is. State police, prosecutors and judges have their biases; they’re only human. But federal police, prosecutors and judges are only human, too. While the ACLU grumbles that “state courts often fail to interpret [death penalty statutes] correctly,” the dirty little secret is that “correctly” is in the eye of the beholder. We can say that state courts get to decide which procedures are correct, or that federal courts do, but in either case, the decision will be made by some mere mortal. Federal review is no sure guide to truth, and loss of federal review is no sure guide to error.
Bottom line: This bill just makes a policy choice, trading off the benefits of one more level of review against the cost of that review. The ACLU shouldn’t suggest that the bill would somehow cause our system of justice to become compromised. Our system of justice has always been a collection of compromises, and always will be.
“Yet death penalty statutes are complex and state courts often fail to interpret them correctly.”
This is just ACLU code for “the federal judges are more liberal than the (FILL IN THE CONSERVATIVE STATE OF YOUR CHOICE) judges, so the statutes will more likely be interpreted in a manner more protective of the capital criminal.”
I have read opinions by many state judges and many federal judges, and I don’t believe that state judges are so inferior in intellect to the federal bench that they should be second-guessed by the feds on these decisions. This is just the “federal court as a court of last resort”, as Ms. McCurdy admits, because of federal liberal bias.
Just wanted to share my agreement
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