Orrin Hatch: “I rise in support of the sense-of-the- Senate resolution. The so-called Racial Justice Act has nothing to do with racial…”

“I rise in support of the sense-of-the- Senate resolution. The so-called Racial Justice Act has nothing to do with racial justice and everything to do with abolishing the death penalty. As I have explained in detailed floor statements over the past 2 weeks, the so-called Racial Justice Act would employ an unreliable and manipulable statistical quota to abolish the death penalty nationwide. That is why State attorneys general and district attorneys throughout the country vigorously oppose it. That is why this Senate, with bipartisan majorities, has repeatedly rejected it. That is why we must reject it again. Supporters of the so-called Racial Justice Act argue that the evils that this legislation would bring about are speculative. That is simply not true. We need only look at actual, historical cases to recognize the pernicious effects that this legislation would have. Take, for example, the case of Robert Alton Harris, who committed two brutal murders in 1978. Despite the fact that Harris confessed to the killings at least seven times, Harris managed to abuse the court system for over a decade until he was finally executed in 1992. Significantly, one of Harris' claims was based on an alleged statistical disparity in the imposition of the death sentence based on the race of the victim. Both of Harris' victims were white, and Harris himself was also white. Yet Harris sought to rely on alleged racial discrimination against minority victims. Based on the U.S.…”