Passing habeas reform

The 1996 law that set the one-year statute of limitations on habeas appeals was one of the signal compromises that Clinton forged on domestic policy in the aftermath of the sweeping Republican victory in the 1994 midterm elections.

Some Republicans had advocated for habeas corpus reform for years, mainly as a way to streamline and limit death-row appeals. The idea struggled to gain traction, but it became a small element of the Contract with America championed by then-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who was on his way to becoming House speaker. After the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the proposal found new life as part of antiterrorism legislation embraced by both parties.

That pairing created political tension, both between the major parties and within them. Some Democrats supported the antiterrorism measures but viewed the habeas restrictions as the unnecessary circumscribing of a fundamental right. Some Republicans backed the habeas restrictions but feared the possible government excesses that might come from expanding surveillance authorities and other law enforcement powers also included in the measure.

“Why is it necessary to link the death penalty and the constitutional guarantees of habeas corpus to a terrorism bill?” Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II (D-Mass.) asked during the debate in the House. “This is just a political deal. It is a political deal to get votes on the right.”

By the mid-1990s, American support for the death penalty had climbed to 80 percent, its highest point since Gallup began polling on the issue in the 1930s. Public patience with the appeals process also was waning as the typical time between sentencing and execution stretched to more than a decade.

“Somehow, somewhere, we are going to end the charade of endless habeas proceedings,” the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), declared in the debate over the antiterrorism law. “And this bill is going to do it.”

But important changes in the legal landscape already were raising concerns among some civil libertarians. One opponent of the habeas proposal, Rep. Melvin Watt, a North Carolina Democrat, cited the advent of DNA evidence and the fact that some prisoners were being exonerated up to 15 years after their trials. Congress, he said, was proposing “to compromise the most basic thing — innocence — for political expediency.”

Four former U.S. attorneys general who were opposed to the legislation — two Democrats and two Republicans — wrote to Clinton to urge that any filing deadlines on habeas petitions take effect “only upon the appointment of competent counsel.”

As supporters of the bill lined up four competing attorneys general behind their position, Hyde announced that he had a “celebrity to trump all of those attorneys general” on the matter. “His name,” Hyde said, “is President Clinton.”

Clinton, who had initially opposed linking habeas reform to the antiterrorism measures, changed his mind — as he had on key facets of welfare reform, criminal sentencing and other domestic policies. As he began campaigning for reelection, he described the delays in death-penalty litigation as “ridiculous.” The streamlining of appeals should begin with the Oklahoma City bombing cases, he announced.

The ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Joe Biden of Delaware, introduced amendments to soften several of the habeas restrictions in the bill. But he left the one-year filing deadline in place, and he supported the bill when it came to the floor. At one point, he proposed to limit the one-year deadline to only federal prisoners, but he eventually supported the bill that came to the floor without that change.

The legislation passed the Senate by a vote of 91 to 8, and it cleared the House by a margin of more than two to one.