For a man who no one seriously believes should be Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales seems to be acquiring more power, not less. Two weeks ago, under the administration’s FISA “fix,” the AG’s office obtained new auditing authority over warrantless surveillance. This week, the AG’s office is poised to get the authority to “fast track” death penalty appeals. It’s important — and discouraging — for a few key reasons.
The Justice Department is putting the final touches on regulations that could give Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales important new sway over death penalty cases in California and other states, including the power to shorten the time that death row inmates have to appeal convictions to federal courts.
The rules implement a little-noticed provision in last year’s reauthorization of the Patriot Act that gives the attorney general the power to decide whether individual states are providing adequate counsel for defendants in death penalty cases. The authority has been held by federal judges.
Under the rules now being prepared, if a state requested it and Gonzales agreed, prosecutors could use “fast track” procedures that could shave years off the time that a death row inmate has to appeal to the federal courts after conviction in a state court.
Even if the Attorney General weren’t an honesty-challenge incompetent, this would be a bad idea. But with Gonzales as the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, it’s a ridiculously bad idea.
In effect, this proposed change would give Gonzales power to cut down on death-penalty appeals and speed up (“fast track”) prosecutions. The system is already flawed — and when we’re dealing with a process in which the government is killing its own citizens, that’s not reassuring — but giving Gonzales the authority to rush the process exacerbates the potential for mistakes and abuse.
“It is another means by which people are determined to shut the federal courts down to meaningful review of death penalty cases,” said Elisabeth Semel, director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the UC Berkeley law school. “The inevitable result of speeding them up is to miss profound legal errors that are made. Lawyers will not see them. Courts will not address them.”
But nearly as importantly, Gonzales himself lacks critical credibility on the issue.
The LAT piece didn’t mention it, but let’s not forget what we learned about Gonzales and the death penalty a couple of months ago.
Paul K. Charlton, one of nine U.S. attorneys fired last year, told members of Congress yesterday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has been overzealous in ordering federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty, including in an Arizona murder case in which no body had been recovered.
Justice Department officials had branded Charlton, the former U.S. attorney in Phoenix, disloyal because he opposed the death penalty in that case. But Charlton testified yesterday that Gonzales has been so eager to expand the use of capital punishment that the attorney general has been inattentive to the quality of evidence in some cases — or the views of the prosecutors most familiar with them.
“No decision is more important for a prosecutor than whether or not to . . . deliberately and methodically take a life,” Charlton said. “And that holds true for the attorney general.”
Charlton was prosecuting a methamphetamine dealer named Jose Rios Rico, who was charged with slaying his drug supplier. Charlton did not plan to seek the death penalty, because there was no forensic evidence (no gun, no DNA, not even a body of the victim). Charlton received a letter from Gonzales and the AG was overriding his judgment — Gonzales demanded he seek the death penalty.
Charlton asked to speak with the AG, and was rebuffed. Charlton asked the DoJ to reconsider the order, and was rebuffed again. Shortly thereafter, Charlton’s name appeared on a list of prosecutors who should be fired.
Indeed, this wasn’t an isolated incident. After taking over the Justice Department, Gonzales overrode prosecutors 21 times on death penalty cases, as compared to three times under Ashcroft (who wasn’t exactly a “soft-on-crime” type of guy).
And now the Bush administration wants to give Gonzales more power to make it easier to execute more Americans? That’s completely insane.