Bishop asks Senate to protect death-row inmates' right to appeal

Published: 2005-07-14

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The chairman of the U.S. bishops' domestic policy committee said he is concerned that a bill pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee might allow innocent people to be executed. In a letter to senators, Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of Brooklyn, N.Y., urged them to oppose provisions of S.1088 that would eliminate some of the ways prisoners have been able to seek federal court review of their capital convictions. The bill, the Streamlined Procedures Act, "would dramatically diminish the federal courts' ability to consider habeas corpus petitions in death penalty cases, even in cases of actual innocence," Bishop DiMarzio said. His letter was dated July 13 and was sent the same day the committee held a hearing on the bill. Witnesses at the hearing included prosecutors who told of being frustrated by years of delays in carrying out death sentences because of repeated appeals. Also testifying were defense attorneys who described cases in which defendants received less than adequate representation at their trial.

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