by Individual Rights and Responsibilities Death Penalty Committee

About the author: The Individual Rights and Responsibilities Death Penalty Committee is an investigative arm of the American Bar Association.

The federal Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, enacted in 1996, includes provisions that severely undermine death row inmates' ability to use federal habeas corpus procedures to challenge their unconstitutional convictions or death sentences. [These procedures allow convicts to have their cases reviewed in a federal court.] Death row inmates have been subjected to numerous due process violations, particularly in state courts, in the litigation and appeal of capital punishment cases. The new limitations on the habeas corpus process likely will preclude the federal courts from considering many meritorious claims of due process violations.

In light of the fact that 40 percent of death row inmates' federal habeas corpus challenges...