The Unobtainable Great Writ

The link I have provided is an article published in the Harvard Law Review recently. It is the first article ever published in this law journal which was written by a pro se litigant. It is a revealing look at how the Great Writ of Habeas Corpus has changed over the years and how in practical terms the Great Writ has been made unobtainable; what possibly was the last means of recourse against unlawful incarceration and conviction and of great importance today in the climate in which we find ourselves. (The writer of the article is serving a life sentence in the State of Florida as a result of a plea bargain agreement falsely foisted on him by his public defender. What price a truly remarkable article.)

I have included below the Congressional record from S3458-3460. The passage of the last major alteration of the writ, (and in my opinion the act which actually rendered the Great Writ non existant contrary to the Constitution and our antecedant rights), the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 is the item in discussion.

I find it immensely revealing that Senator Ted Kennedy resoundingly came out against the alteration and eviceration of the Great Writ. Senator Orrin Hatch led the charge for the legislation and admits to writing the majority of the bill. I am with Senator Kennedy on this one.

The majority of those who presently occupy the judge's chambers across the country, especially at the federal level, are the enforcers of this tragedy and do so regularly without conscience it appears. The Supremes are just as guilty. Interestingly, most of these folks are Republican appointees. I guess they follow their leader, Abraham Lincoln, with regard to the Writ of Habeas Corpus.

One would hope that this article would stimulate the reversal of the AEDPA and functionally restore the Great Writ to our arsenal of weapons against tyranny and the likes of courts which are effectively nothing more than Star Chamber reincarnate.

The Senate record of the discussion in this regard:

S3458 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—SENATE April 17, 1996

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is a year since the tragic bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City, and 10 months since the Senate passed a bill to give Federal law enforcement agencies the effective assistance they need to deal with these crimes. Unfortunately, the conference report before us is a far weaker bill than the measure we passed last year. All that is left now is the hollow shell of a terrorism bill, a mockery of the strong bipartisan legislation passed by the Senate.

Most of the meaningful antiterrorism measures passed by the Senate have been stripped out by the House, so that this bill is far less likely to deter terrorist crimes or aid in the apprehension of terrorists.

Using the phony label of antiterrorism, the bill achieves two reprehensible goals: it denies meaningful habeas corpus review to State death row inmates, and it makes it easier to turn away refugees and victims of political persecution from America’s shores.

Everyone knows what happened to this bill. It fell victim to the anti-Government assault of the National Rifle Association. After the Senate passed a tough, effective terrorism bill, the NRA stepped in and prevented House action for months. Then the NRA’s supporters in the House stripped the bill of key provisions to strengthen Federal law enforcement.

As a result of the NRA’s maneuvering, the conference report before us is completely inadequate to meet the needs of law enforcement. The Senate still has a chance to insist on a real terrorism bill, and not a sham bill. We should send this bill back to conference, and insist that the conferees restore the tough Senate provisions.

There are numerous glaring gaps in the conference report: It does not include the expanded wiretapping authority that the FBI has said is necessary to keep up with current telecommunications technology. It does not address the dangerous reality that bomb-making information is now freely disseminated on the Internet. It does not include a Senate-passed provision extending the statute of limitations for serious firearms offenses. It does not include a necessary exception to the posse comitatus laws so that military experts can provide technical assistance to law enforcement in terrorist attacks involving chemical or biological warfare.

Each of these measures was included in the Senate bill, but has been stripped out of the conference report at the insistence of the NRA. And while the bill is clearly deficient in these respects, it includes other provisions that are too extreme in limiting the rights and liberties of individuals: It eviscerates the ancient Writ of Habeas Corpus, denying death row inmates the opportunity to obtain even one meaningful Federal review of the constitutionality of their convictions.

It returns to the discredited cold war guilt-by-association policy of the McCarran-Walter law, excluding individuals from our shores based on mere membership in an organization. Current law already contains authority to exclude members of known terrorist organizations.

The far broader sweep of this bill is unnecessary and excessive. It places excessive restrictions on the ability of refugees to obtain asylum in the United States. This provision was never considered by the full Senate, and it ought to be debated on the immigration bill, not the terrorism legislation.

Mr. President, I point out here what has been happening. Asylum claims decline
57 percent as productivity doubles in 1995. What we have seen is the dramatic reduction in terms of the asylum claims. In 1994, there were 122,000; 60,000 completed.

In 1995, 53,000; 126,000 were completed. The Justice Department has a handle on this issue. It is doing it in a conscientious, fair, and disciplined way, and we ought to retain it and not be caught up with other facts and figures.

Every omnibus bill requires Members of Congress to weigh the good provisions against the bad ones. I voted for the Senate bill even though it included the objectionable limits on habeas corpus. But the balance has changed, now that the Senate bill has been seriously weakened. There is too little to place on the scale against the shameful trashing of the writ of habeas corpus and the Nation’s asylum system.

It is unfortunate that the unrelated and controversial subject of habeas corpus was injected into this bill in the first place. Proponents say that habeas corpus is relevant because the suspects in the Oklahoma City bombing are charged with a Federal capital offense. But that fact is no justification for changing the rules with regard to State prisoners.

The habeas corpus proposals do not strike a fair balance. The bill denies death row inmates a full opportunity to raise claims of innocence based on newly discovered evidence. It will therefore increase the likelihood that innocent people will be executed. The proposal to limit inmates to one bite at the apple is sound in principle. But surely the interest in swift executions must yield to new evidence that an innocent person is about to be put to death. As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once wrote, ‘‘Swift justice demands more than just swiftness.’’

Also, the proposal would unwisely require Federal courts to defer to State courts on issues of Federal constitutional law. A Federal court could not grant a writ habeas corpus based on Federal constitutional claims, unless the State court’s judgment was ‘‘an unreasonable application of Federal law.’’

It is a serious mistake to require a Federal court to defer to the judgment of a State court on matters of Federal constitutional law. The notion that a Federal court should be prevented from correcting a constitutional error because it was a reasonable error is unacceptable, especially in a capital case.

Ever since the days of Chief Justice John Marshall, the Federal courts have served as the great defenders of constitutional protections, and they should remain so.

The asylum provisions in this bill are equally misguided. The Senate-passed bill did not address this subject, because it is more appropriately dealt with as part of immigration reform. But the conferees adopted House-passed language that drastically limits the ability of refugees to claim asylum if they arrive without proper documents. This provision undermines the fundamental treaty obligations of the United States by subjecting legitimate refugees to persecution and even torture.

It is often impossible for asylum seekers fleeing persecution to obtain a valid passport or travel document before they leave. Even the effort to obtain a travel document from the same government that is the persecutor may result in further danger to the asylum seeker. People may die or may be tortured while waiting for the proper papers. Accepting this reality, the U.N. High Commission on Refugees has recognized that circumstances may compel a refugee to use fraudulent documents to escape persecution. This fact has long been recognized under international law. The United States has international obligations to protect refugees and asylum seekers who use fraudulent documents to escape persecution abroad. Article 31 of the U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees imposes an obligation on the United States not to penalize refugees and asylum seekers who are fleeing persecution, and who present fraudulent documents or no documents at all.

Under current practice, when asylum seekers arrive in the United States without valid travel documents or a passport, they are placed in detention. Generally, they are released from detention only if an asylum prescreening officer believes they have a sound case. That is the dramatic change in the way the Justice Department is considering the asylum seekers at the present time and how they were considered a number of months ago. Otherwise, they must pursue their asylum claim while in detention.

The pending bill significantly changes this process. It gives the prescreening officer the authority to deport an asylum seeker who enters with false or no documents. The office can deport the asylum seeker without a full hearing. An immigration judge never sees the case. In addition, the asylum seeker has no access to the assistance of counsel or even an interpreter. As we consider this unprecedented proposal, we should remind ourselves of Raoul Wallenberg, the hero who saved countless lives during the Holocaust by

April 17, 1996 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—SENATE S3459

issuing false travel documents so that Jews could escape Hitler’s persecution. If this bill had been law in 1946, those Jews could have been returned to Europe without so much as a hearing. Finally, the bill is flawed because it excludes foreigners from our shores based on mere membership in a disfavored organization. In the days of the cold war, distinguished writers, professors, and others were excluded from the United States based on their mere membership in a Communist organization.

Finally in 1990, we repealed the notorious McCarran-Walter law and set exclusion criteria based on individual actions, not their words. This bill is a giant step backward. It explicitly sets excessive exclusion criteria based on membership in an organization, even though it would be grossly unfair to assume that all or even most members of the organization are terrorists. Current law already gives broad authority to exclude members of terrorist organizations in such cases, and the blunderbuss provision in this bill is unneeded. If applied to American citizens, it would be a violation of the first amendment.

The harm caused by the habeas corpus, asylum, and exclusion provisions of this bill is severe, and the good accomplished by the antiterrorism sections of the bill is minor. I urge the Senate to send this defective bill back to conference with instructions to do the job right—and produce a real antiterrorism bill that gives law enforcement the tools it needs to get the job done.

I thank the chairman and the ranking minority member of the committee for letting me address the Senate on this issue.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I have listened to my distinguished colleague and friend, and he would like to restore the Senate bill. We just cannot do that. I was very proud of that Senate bill. I wrote most of it and, frankly, I think our colleagues worked together to come up with a good bill. When it went to the House, the House enacted a bill which really was much less than the Senate bill. We have gone to conference and have brought most all of the Senate bill back.

The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts says that this bill we have today is a hollow shell. Now, come on. Let me just go through some highlights of this bill.

We have most everything back, and the things we do not have back, we can probably, in the real world, solve anyway, under current existing law. I have to say, yes, I would prefer the original Senate bill, but let me give you one illustration.

In the fundraising provisions, I might add that the Antidefamation League, and others of similar mind—and I am of similar mind—believe that our fundraising language is far superior in this bill than it was in the Senate bill. I know it is far superior.

We were able to work that out with our colleagues in the House. That alone is a reason for preferring this bill over the Senate bill, plus the added promise that I have made here that I will try to work out these wiretap and other issues, or at least the wiretap issues, in the Senate Judiciary Committee. But just look at the highlights of this antiterrorism bill. Capital punishment reform, death penalty reform, something that has been needed for years, decades. It is being abused all over the country. There are better than 3,000 people who have been living on death row for years with the sentences never carried out, the victims going through the pain every time they turn around. This will solve that problem while still protecting their constitutional rights and every right of appeal that they really should have. It is written well.

The international terrorism prohibitions, prohibitions on international terrorist fundraising. As I have said, the Anti-Defamation League, AIPAC, and a whole raft of others that are concerned in this area, like the language in this bill much better than the languagein the Senate bill.

This subtitle adds to Federal law prohibitions which provide material support to, or raise funds for, foreign organizations designated by the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General, to be terrorist organizations.

We have the Terrorist and Criminal Alien Removal and Exclusion Act in this bill. We remove alien terrorists, and we provide very good language that was very much the same as the Senate language. We have the exclusion of members or representatives of terrorist organizations, the alien terrorists exclusion, if you will. This permits, as a new legal basis for alien exclusion, the denial of entry into the United States of any person who is a representative or member of a designated terrorist organization.

We have a whole title on nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons restrictions. These are not picayune provisions. This is big-time stuff. This is something this country has needed for years and the whole world needs. We have it in this bill.

We have the expansion of scope and jurisdictional bases of nuclear materials prohibitions and a report to Congress on thefts of explosive materials from armories. We require the Attorney General, together with the Secretary of Defense, to undertake a study of the number of thefts of firearms, explosives, and other terrorist-type materials from military arsenals. We will make them get on these things.

We have biological weapons restrictions, enhanced penalties, and control of biological agents. We have chemical weapons restrictions, chemical weapons, and biological weapons of mass destruction.

We provide for a study of the facility for training and the evaluation of personnel who respond to the use of chemical or biological weapons in urban or suburban areas.

We have the implementation of the Plastic Explosives Convention in here.

We have the marking of plastic explosives.

We have studies on the marking of other explosives and putting taggants on them.

We have made a whole bunch of modifications in criminal law to counterterrorism, increased penalties for conspiracies involving explosives.

All this talk about explosives. We provide language in here that will help to solve those problems. Acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, we have language on that. We have criminal procedure changes in here that would make a real difference with regard to certain terrorism offenses overseas, the clarification of maritime violence jurisdiction, increased and alternate conspiracy penalties for terrorism offenses, clarification of Federal jurisdiction over bomb threats. The expansion and modification of weapons of mass destruction statute is in here, the addition of terrorism offenses to the money laundering statute.

We have the protection of Federal employees in here mainly because it is needed now in this day and age with some of the vicious people we have to put up with in our society. We have the protection of current and former officials in here, officers, employees of the United States.

We have the death penalty as an aggravating factor. We solve that and add multiple killings to the list of aggravating factors in the imposition of the death penalty. We have detention hearing language in here and directions to the sentencing commission.

I have to say, we have a whole raft of other things that I do not have time to mention. Look, it is time to pass this terrorism bill. It is time to let the people in Oklahoma City know we mean business here.

Is the time expired on both sides? On behalf of the majority leader and I, I move that we table the Kennedy, amendment and ask for the yeas andnays.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The question occurs on agreeing to the motion to table.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, do we have motions to table on both of these amendments? And will they be back to back?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is only one amendment. The Senator from Massachusetts did not offer an amendment.

Mr. HATCH. He did not. I am happy to then proceed with the vote on the Biden amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question occurs on agreeing to the motion to table the motion to recommit.

S3460 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—SENATE April 17, 1996

The yeas and nays have been ordered.

The clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk called the roll.

Mr. LOTT. I announce that the Senator from Florida [Mr. MACK] is necessarily
absent

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?

The result was announced—yeas 56, nays 43, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 68 Leg.]

YEAS—56
Abraham
Ashcroft
Baucus
Bennett
Bond
Brown
Burns
Campbell
Chafee
Coats
Cochran
Cohen
Coverdell
Craig
D’Amato
DeWine
Dole
Domenici
Exon
Faircloth
Feingold
Frist
Gorton
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Hatfield
Helms
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Kassebaum
Kempthorne
Kyl
Lott
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Nickles
Pressler
Reid
Roth
Santorum
Shelby
Simpson
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Warner

NAYS—43
Akaka
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Bradley
Breaux
Bryan
Bumpers
Byrd
Conrad
Daschle
Dodd
Dorgan
Feinstein
Ford
Glenn
Graham
Harkin
Heflin
Hollings
Inouye
Johnston
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Mikulski
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murray
Nunn
Pell
Pryor
Robb
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Simon
Wellstone
Wyden

NOT VOTING—1
Mack

The motion to lay on the table the motion to recommit was agreed to.