Support
growing for safeguards on death penalty
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As Maryland joins Illinois in halting executions because of concerns over flaws in the capital punishment system, congressional support is growing for new protections against putting innocent inmates to death, and a majority of the Republican-controlled House now backs federal safeguards.
Supporters announced Tuesday that 230 House members have signed on as co-sponsors of a measure that would give all state and federal prisoners, including those not sentenced to death, easier access to DNA testing to prove claims of innocence.
The legislation also would provide new protections targeted at defendants in death penalty cases, including nationally set minimum competency standards for their court-appointed attorneys.
"The momentum is with us. ... With this number of co-sponsors, we could pass this bill if it came to the floor," said Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., who introduced the measure 2 years ago.
Sixty Republicans are co-sponsors, including such well-known conservative death penalty supporters as Reps. Dan Burton of Indiana and Phil Crane of Illinois. However, it is unclear whether the legislation will receive approval from the House Judiciary Committee, which is necessary for the bill to reach the House floor.
A spokesman for Judiciary Chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said Sensenbrenner has not yet decided whether he will even allow the committee to consider the measure.
The legislation tracks a mounting national unease with problems that have surfaced in death penalty cases.
The measure first was introduced in 2000 after Gov. George Ryan imposed a moratorium on executions in Illinois. Ryan acted after the state had exonerated 13 Death Row inmates, more people than had been executed since Illinois reinstated the death penalty in 1977.
Last week, Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening declared a moratorium on executions in his state until a study is completed on possible racial and geographic discrimination in death sentences.
Legislatures in Nebraska and New Hampshire passed bills to suspend or abolish the death penalty, but the governors in those states vetoed them. Ten states are conducting studies of shortcomings in their capital punishment systems.
The House legislation would work mostly by conditioning some federal law-enforcement grants to state governments on adoption of safeguards against executing innocent prisoners.
For example, states would be denied a portion of prison-construction assistance funds unless they provide adequate counsel to capital defendants.
Grants for DNA-related law-enforcement programs would require that states preserve biological evidence gathered at crime scenes and make DNA testing available to indigent inmates.
But the measure also would invoke Congress' power under the 14th Amendment to prohibit states from denying prisoners' requests for DNA testing of potentially exculpatory evidence and to assure inmates could use the results to prove their innocence and gain release.
(source: Chicago Tribune)
