Kill! Kill! Kill! Faster! Faster! Faster!

Kathy at Liberty Street directs our attention to a Washington Post editorial opposing a proposed bill which would transform habeas corpus from a legal right to just another sliver of dead Latin:

For a great many capital cases, the bill would eliminate federal review entirely. Federal courts would be unable to review almost all capital convictions from states certified by the Justice Department as providing competent counsel to convicts to challenge their convictions under state procedures. Although the bill, versions of which differ slightly between the chambers, provides a purported exception for cases in which new evidence completely undermines a conviction, this is drawn so narrowly that it is likely to be useless -- even in identifying cases of actual innocence.

It gets worse. The bill, pushed by Rep. Daniel E. Lungren (R-Calif.) in the House and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) in the Senate, would impose onerous new procedural hurdles on inmates seeking federal review -- those, that is, whom it doesn't bar from court altogether. It would bar the courts from considering key issues raised by those cases and insulate most capital sentencing from federal scrutiny. It also would dictate arbitrary timetables for federal appeals courts to resolve habeas cases. This would be a dramatic change in federal law -- and entirely for the worse.

Kathy neatly sums up the motivations behind this bill:

Believe it or not, the bill's sponsors say its purpose is to solve the problem of convictions being overturned after new evidence proved the defendant's innocence. Great solution, right? People are starting to have doubts about the death penalty because of all these cases where late-breaking evidence showed the conviction was a dud; so we'll just keep those defendants from telling the federal courts about the new evidence.

Another fine example the Republican "Culture of Life." It's as transparently bogus as every other NeoConservative machination we've been beaten over the head with for the last five and a half years, from Clear Skies Initiative to No Child Left Behind. What will they call this bill? I'm betting on The Innocent Death Row Felons Initiative.
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Post Script: I weren't payin' attention, were I? Must be Blogger's Attention Deficit Disorder. I prefer my own name for the bill, but Streamlined Procedures Act of 2005 is appropriately deceptive.