Alberto Gonzales and his Department of Just Us work to boost executions rather than boost DNA

[ck4829]

The US justice department is reviewing legal procedures to speed up executions to prevent prisoners spending decades on death row.

Some Republicans have been complaining for years that prisoners can delay execution by 20 or more years through appeals. They say that the original intention of the law was that the gap between sentencing and execution should be short.

The justice department, which has shifted radically to the right under the attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, is making the final details to the changes. The public have until September 23 to lodge an opinion after which the new rules can be implemented.

There are about 3,350 people on death row in the US and there were 53 executions last year.

The move to speed up the process has alarmed opponents of the death penalty but conservatives, as well as being dissatisfied with the lengthy process at present, have expressed concern about costs: prisoners on death row cost about $90,000 (£45,000) more a year to house than other inmates.

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Although DNA testing has helped establish the innocence of more than a dozen death row inmates (And many more who are not on Death Row have been exonerated because of it, but many more are still waiting and could be exonerated), conservative Republicans have yet to be persuaded about the case for delay. They believe some liberal judges opposed to the death penalty deliberately string out the legal process.

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Two Republican congressmen, Dan Lungren and Jon Kyl, both of whom support the death penalty, opened the way for the changes by putting a provision in the Patriot Act last year that switched power from states to Mr Gonzales to decide on death row prisoners' legal representation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2148927,00.html