Abstract

Justice Watch: Executioners' Songs

On July 11, 1990, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed the Omnibus Crime Control Act, which Senator Joseph Biden called "the toughest, most comprehensive crime bill in the U.S. history." Omnibus bills in the Senate and House are similar in some respects as both increase the number of federal capital crimes, limit the right to challenge the constitutionality of a death sentence or the way it is obtained, and punish savings and loan fraud. But they take very different positions on expanding the federal death penalty and expediting its application. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, as many states restored capital punishment by correcting the constitutional defects of old laws invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1972, House Judiciary Committee liberals blocked federal death penalty bills that had passed in the Senate.