Since capital punishment was reinstated in the US three decades ago, 124 people awaiting execution have been exonerated. For some prisoners, the appeals pro-cess provided time to prove their innocence.
Now a move by the government to speed up appeals has alarmed death penalty opponents, and even some supporters, who worry that innocent people could be put to death.
The unease involves a new law that would give the US attorney general, instead of judges, the power to shorten some deadlines for appeals if programs are established to ensure convicts get competent lawyers.
Supporters of the law argue that families of victims suffer when executions are delayed, because they have to wait for perpetrators to face justice. Proponents also say that the long wait between sentencing and execution blunts the deterrent effect they believe makes criminals think twice before murdering.
"These cases are being reconsidered in a lot more detail than they need to be," says Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a victims' rights group based in California. "Justice can't take this long."
Some lawmakers, defense lawyers and human rights groups believe the attorney general, as the supervisor of US prosecutors, should not be made responsible for ensuring the rights of convicts.
Some of these opponents hope Monday's resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could provide an opportunity to alter or repeal the law.
The law, approved last year but not yet implemented, would affect only appeals in state courts, which try most death penalty cases. Thirty-eight of 50 US states allow the death penalty, though some have suspended executions. While polls show most Americans favor capital punishment, support has been eroding.
Among the concerns, some death row convicts have lost their chances to appeal because of mistakes by state-appointed lawyers. Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union documented 16 death penalty cases in Florida alone, where lawyers missed deadlines.
Critics of the law say that moving up deadlines without guaranteeing that defendants have competent lawyers would be reckless.
Death-row inmates spend an average of 10.5 years in the legal system before execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a research group that opposes capital punishment. The 124 people who were exonerated spent an average of 9.2 years to overturn their sentences.
On Monday, the American Bar Association (ABA), the US legal profession's largest association, called the rules "deeply and fundamentally flawed" for not ensuring that convicts have competent attorneys.
"The rules open the scary possibility that the states are going to wave their arms, and the Department of Justice is just going to let them speed appeals," said Robert Litt, a criminal defense lawyer who helped write the ABA comments.
A Justice Department spokesman, Erik Ablin, would not comment on the ABA's criticism but said the department would consider it before completing its rules.
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