Justice For All Act

Floor Speech

JUSTICE FOR ALL ACT -- (Senate - December 08, 2004)

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, almost 2 months ago, we passed H.R. 5107, the Justice for All Act. That bill was the product of months, even years, of hard work and dedication of many on both sides of the aisle. The final product includes a number of important provisions and badly needed funding for State criminal justice systems and, for that, I am happy to see it pass. However, in order to gain my support, as well as that of a number of my colleagues, a number of compromises were made with respect to certain aspects of the Innocence Protection Act section of the bill.

Specifically, the House majority leader, Mr. DELAY, and other members of the Texas delegation in the House inserted into the bill a provision designed to protect the capital representation system that is in place in Texas. Section 421(d)(1)© was added specifically to ensure that Texas or any State with a similarly structured system would qualify as an "effective system" under the statute.

My support of the bill depended entirely on that provision and on the generally agreed-upon understanding of what that provision accomplishes. As made clear in a colloquy given on this floor at the time of the bill's passage, on October 9, 2004, between myself, Senator SESSIONS and the chairman of the authorizing committee, Senator HATCH, who also happened to be the author and sponsor of the legislation, "it is this system [in Texas] or any future version of it that specifically is intended to be protected by this language." Further, we agreed that "Texas will not have to change a thing in order to receive grants under this bill-it is automatically pre-qualified." Mr. HATCH also noted that it was his understanding that "at least half a dozen other States also will automatically pre-qualify for funding under this proviso."

Typically, I would not take the floor to make this point so long after the date of passage.

But with regard to the Justice for All Act, I do feel compelled to respond to a statement the senior Senator from Vermont made
on the floor on November 19, 2004--a full 41 days after the passage of H.R. 5107 on October 9, 2004, indicating a different view of the meaning of this provision and others.

The final bill was the product of careful negotiations that sought to protect many different States' interests. It does not represent the wish-list of the Senator from Vermont. Suffice to say that the bill likely would not even have been enacted had the interests of the different States, interests such as those protected by the revised section 421, been adequately protected. Indeed, I would further note that views of the senior Senator from Vermont are hardly authoritative with regard to this bill. It is the senior Senator from Utah that is the author and lead sponsor of the bill and the chairman of the committee that reported the bill. And as the senior Senator from Utah made clear at the time that the bill was enacted, actual legislative history, he and I
understood the bill to carve out a State such as Texas that had preexisting capital appointment systems.

The senior Senator from Vermont also attempts to take some liberties with the meaning of other parts of the Justice for All Act's capital-counsel subtitle. He alleges that its grant provisions should be "strictly interpreted by grant administrators"; that a $125-an-hour rate for defense attorneys is what is "reasonable"; that defense attorneys' pay should be pegged to prosecutors' pay, and should include geographic cost-of-living adjustments; that the capital-counsel entity may not delegate some of its functions to individual trial judges; and that capital-improvement grants may not be used to higher prosecutors.

None of these ambitions for the Justice for All Act has support in the actual text of the law. Indeed, some of these assertions directly contradict the understanding of the law at the time that it was enacted. For example, as the senior Senator from Utah made clear to the Senator from Alabama at the time that the bill passed the Senate, and well before House passage of the accompanying enrolling resolution made Senate passage final, nothing in section 421 precludes a State from structuring the capital-counsel entity so that general rules and rosters are set by a larger group of qualified judges, and application of those rules in individual cases, selection of counsel from the roster and approval of fees and expenses, is made by a qualified trial judge presiding over the case.

Further, I would like to include the attached letter from the Texas Task Force on Indigent Defense regarding H.R. 5107, the Justice for All Act (P.L. 108-405), into the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. This letter responds directly to the statement by Mr. LEAHY found on page S 11609 of the November 19, 2004 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD.

I know that my friend, the House Majority Leader, included in the House record this same letter, but I want to ensure that the record is clear. As he pointed out on the House floor, the mission of the Texas Task Force on Indigent Defense is to promote justice and fairness to all indigent persons accused of criminal conduct. The Task Force was created by State law, the Fair Defense Act of 2001, and took effect on January 1, 2002. Since its implementation, the Task Force has awarded over $28 million to 250 counties in Texas in furtherance of its mission to improve legal representation for indigent persons accused of crimes.

I believe this letter responds in full and shows exactly the kind of system that H.R. 5107 envisions as effective, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the RECORD.

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