Statement of Administration Policy: S. 1970 - Omnibus Crime Bill

(Senate)
(Biden (D) Delaware)

If S. 1970 were presented to the President without addressing satisfactorily the Administration's concerns, the President's senior advisers would recommend that the bill be vetoed.

S. 1970 would undermine effective use of the death penalty, vitiate the habeas corpus reform proposals advanced by the Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Habeas Corpus in Capital Cases of the Judicial Conference (the Powell Committee), narrow an important existing exception to the exclusionary rule, and disrupt and damage the Justice Department's drug enforcement efforts. The Administration urges, instead, that Congress pass the President's violent crime control legislation incorporated in S. 1225 and S. 1971.

The Administration's principal objections to S. 1970 are addressed below.

— Death Penalty. Title I would establish, in effect, an irrebuttable presumption of "discrimination" based on a failure to achieve specific numerical proportions in the imposition of the death penalty. The likely result would be the invalidation of every death sentence now in effect and preclusion of all future use of capital punishment at both the State and Federal levels. Title I also raises profound constitutional concerns because it would promote the consideration of race in capital cases on a systematic basis.

— Habeas Corpus. Title II, relating to death penalty litigation, proposes procedures which would systematically overturn Supreme Court decisions that safeguard the finality of criminal judgments. It also would eviscerate the central recommendation of the Powell Committee — appropriate limits on second and successive habeas corpus petitions in capital cases. The bill would broadly permit a capital defendant to raise claims in Federal habeas corpus proceedings that were not raised before the State courts. It would also permit a capital defendant to delay a full year before applying for Federal habeas corpus. Furthermore, S. 1970 does not contain the President's proposals addressing the abuse of habeas corpus in non-capital cases. Thus, convicts could continue to attack their convictions and sentences for years or even decades after the conclusion of normal State proceedings.

— Exclusionary Rule. Title III fails to extend the "good faith" exception to the exclusionary rule to cases involving warrantless searches and seizures. Indeed, it takes a step backward by narrowing the existing "good faith" exception for searches under warrants, and presents serious interpretive problems as well. A fully general reasonableness ("good faith") exception, applicable to both warrant and non-warrant cases, was passed by the Senate in the 98th Congress. Comparable proposals are now included in the President's violent crime control bill and S. 1971.

— Assault Weapons. Title IV provides a more burdensome, yet significantly less effective, firearms enforcement scheme than that proposed by the President. It involves only limitations on nine specified types of "assault weapons" and does not attempt to control the firepower of other similar firearms. It would also provide less certainty of punishment for the illegal use of weapons by violent felons and drug traffickers than would S. 1225.

— Justice Department Reorganization. Title VI would establish an "Organized crime and Dangerous Drug Division" in the Justice Department. Such a reorganization would disrupt the Department's operations and impair its ability to combat effectively violent crime and drug trafficking. New and duplicative bureaucracies are not the solution to drug crimes.