Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I want to point out that the Derrick amendment does not do a thing for the underlying bill with respect to what was in the provisions that I complained about and most of the attorneys general and the district attorneys complained about. By passing the Derrick amendment, by knocking out the Hyde provisions here and reinstating, in essence, the underlying provisions, what we are going to do is to give the opportunity for death row inmates to have another endless appeals opportunity, another bite at the apple. Mr. Chairman, it is very straightforward, under present law a death row inmate may not take a new ruling of the Supreme Court on criminal procedures and go into Federal court and try to challenge his death penalty. He may not do that. If the amendment by the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Derrick] became final and became the law, then a death row inmate would be able to do that. He would be able to take every new Supreme Court decision that came down the pike and go into Federal court and challenge his death penalty.”