Jim Sensenbrenner: “this amendment is critical to the debate on what direction this crime bill will take. Will it be a crime bill that gives…”

“this amendment is critical to the debate on what direction this crime bill will take. Will it be a crime bill that gives the tools to our police and prosecutors and other law enforcement authorities to put people away and to have them serve their sentences even if it should be a sentence of death? Or will it be another wolf in sheep's clothing where people posture, saying that they want to be tough on crime but, looking at the details, comes up with the opposite conclusion? Mr. Chairman, this bill, I think, represents legislative schizophrenia in the area of the death penalty and in many other areas, and the amendment that is offered by the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde] is medicine to cure schizophrenia in the area of habeas corpus. Mr. Chairman, what the amendment of the gentleman from Illinois proposes to do is to reinstate existing law on the subject of appeals in death row cases.”