Habeas Corpus

ONE OF the most shameful pages in the history of American justice was the 1915 case of Leo Frank. A Jewish businessman in Georgia, he was accused of murdering a young Christian woman he employed. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to death in a courtroom dominated by an anti-Semitic mob. The Georgia courts rejected his appeal.Frank asked the federal courts to free him on a writ of habeas corpus. But the Supreme Court held that federal judges could not even hear his case, because it had had "a full review" in the Georgia courts.

Boston -- THE SUPREME Court has an inherently anomalous role in the American polity. We expect it to articulate eternal values: justice, freedom, rights. But we do not want it to be utterly out of touch with the movement of belief in our democracy.The Framers of the Constitution dealt with the dilemma by giving the justices life tenure but making their appointments political. The president nominates, and the Senate confirms. That way the court is shaped, over time, by our democratic institutions.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court, dividing 6-3, barred state prison inmates from federal courts yesterday if a mistake by their lawyers kept state courts from having the first chance to rule on constitutional complaints against their conviction or sentence.The ruling was the latest, and one of the most far-reaching, decisions in a lengthening list that have curbed state prisoners' opportunities to take constitutional challenges to federal court under a right of review that has origins going back at least to the 13th century.

THE U.S. Supreme Court is out of the closet. The myth that it is only liberals who are judicial activists stands exposed.The Supreme Court has never acted in as nakedly activist a manner as did the Rehnquist court last month in a case known as "McCleskey II" (McCleskey vs. Zant). No longer will it be possible for conservative politicians to proclaim that the appointees of Presidents Nixon, Reagan and Bush believe in judicial restraint.In McCleskey II, the Supreme Court unabashedly legislated drastic restrictions on one of our most fundamental rights -- the writ of habeas corpus.

Last year Chief Justice William Rehnquist asked Congress to change the law regarding habeas corpus writs in federal courts. These are appeals often employed by inmates in state prisons seeking federal review of what they say were unconstitutional state acts in conviction or sentencing. The chief justice said that especially in death penalty cases there were too many, that often they were filed serially with some claims held back till the others had been rejected as a delaying tactic and that they were clogging the system.

WASHINGTON -- A divided Supreme Court, taking a new step to cut off multiple appeals of criminal convictions, ruled yesterday that most inmates will have to press all their challenges the first time they come to federal court, or forfeit them.The 6-3 ruling, in a Georgia death row case, could reduce the number of attempts by inmates under death sentence across the country to overturn their convictions and sentences.It affects as well inmates serving time in state prisons for all kinds of crimes, whenever they might complain to federal courts about the constitutionality of their guilty verdicts or their sentences.

"If our forces could win the ground war in 100 hours, then surely the Congress can pass [transportation and crime] legislation in 100 days," President Bush said to the joint session of Congress last month. On crime, at least, why take so long?The president's version of the crime bill he unveiled last month is very much like elements of a crime bill that had broad support among Democrats in Congress last year. Both House and Senate passed ambitious, wide-ranging bills. A conference committee deadlocked on the controversial parts of the package just before adjournment (and the elections)