John Chenoweth: “Mr. Chairman, I do not offer this amendment because I am perfectly satisfied with the way Federal habeas corpus works…”

“Mr. Chairman, I do not offer this amendment because I am perfectly satisfied with the way Federal habeas corpus works now. Far from it. I think we need reform legislation that moves the death penalty cases along so that we do not take years to complete them. And my heart goes out to the victims of these horrible crimes that we heard about during the debate of this amendment, but the effects of this title are not limited to death penalty cases. Most of them covered noncapital cases as well, including cases where citizens were wrongfully prosecuted for exercising their constitutional rights to keep and bear arms. This provision, the provision in this bill, goes well beyond anything that would merely speed up the death penalty process. In some cases it destroys our cherished rights to habeas corpus completely. I would point out to my colleagues that this title is not the language passed in the House, H.R. 729. This is the Senate language and, among other things, it dramatically cuts time limits in half for habeas corpus filings.”