Habeas

The Times' recent article and editorial about habeas corpus legislation in the anti-terrorism bill (April 16, 17) seriously miss the real effect of the amendments. Death penalty cases receive more attention than virtually any other type of criminal case. But death penalty cases amount to an extremely small percentage (only about 1%) of all habeas corpus cases heard by the federal courts. The proposed habeas corpus legislation will affect all habeas corpus cases, not just those filed by death row inmates.

EVEN IF HE SAYS SO HIMSELF, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is an expert on constitutional law. So his warning that the Supreme Court is likely to invalidate pending legislation that would create military commissions to try terrorist suspects deserves a hearing -- in the Senate. The problem with the legislation -- even with the improvements forced on the White House by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.

Two simple propositions have set this country's criminal-justice system above that of all other nations. We believe that a defendant is innocent until proved guilty and that it is preferable that a guilty person go free than an innocent person be punished. However difficult, slow and costly these propositions have made the meting out of justice, they have served us well for 200 years.

Taxpayers have spent more than $4 billion on capital punishment in California since it was reinstated in 1978, or about $308 million for each of the 13 executions carried out since then, according to a comprehensive analysis of the death penalty's costs. The examination of state, federal and local expenditures for capital cases, conducted over three years by a senior federal judge and a law professor, estimated that the additional costs of capital trials, enhanced security on death row and legal representation for the condemned adds $184 million to the budget each year.

LIKE ALL WARS, the "war on terror" has resulted in expanded use of the government's power, and this is especially true with respect to the treatment of captured enemy combatants. The Bush administration has correctly held such individuals under the laws of war, without criminal trial, and has denied them the privileges of honorable "prisoners of war" under the Geneva Convention. However, there are certain lines that have not been, and should not be, crossed -- at least not unless things get much worse.

Since each performance of Alan Bennett's "Habeas Corpus" at the Matrix Theatre features a different mix of actors drawn from the production's dual casts, there's no way to know in advance which of the alternates might appear in any given role. Not to worry, though.

Amid the din of traffic and the buzz of busy sidewalks, brown-baggers take refuge in a vest-pocket park behind the Bradbury Building. A timeline at the park's entrance memorializes a former slave who had compassion for the poor, turned poverty into profit and helped to rescue 13 others from slavery.

When the Supreme Court goes on recess at the end of this month, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy will be off to his summer teaching job in Salzburg, Austria. For the 19th year, he will teach a class called "Fundamental Rights in Europe and the United States" for the McGeorge Law School. He tells his American and European students that the belief in individual freedom and the respect for human dignity transcends national borders.

The Obama administration has won the legal right to hold its terrorism suspects indefinitely and without oversight by judges — not at Guantanamo or in Illinois, but rather at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan. In a 3-0 decision, the U.S. appeals court in Washington ruled for the administration Friday and said the Constitution and its right to habeas corpus does not extend to foreign prisoners held by the U.S. military in Afghanistan because it is a war zone. The judges dismissed claims from three prisoners who were taken to Bagram from Pakistan and Thailand and have been held for as long as seven years.