[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 67 (Thursday, May 19, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5540-S5543]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. KYL:
  S. 1088. A bill to establish streamlined procedures for collateral 
review of mixed petitions, amendments, and defaulted claims, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Streamlined 
Procedures Act. This legislation will reduce delays in federal courts' 
review of habeas corpus petitions filed by State prisoners.
  Currently, many Federal habeas corpus cases require 10, 15, or even 
20 years to complete. These delays burden the courts and deny justice 
to defendants with meritorious claims. They also are deeply unfair to 
victims of serious, violent crimes. A parent whose child has been 
murdered, or someone who has been the victim of a violent assault, 
cannot be expected to ``move on'' without knowing how the case against 
the attacker has been resolved. Endless litigation, and the uncertainty 
that it brings, is unnecessarily cruel to these victims and their 
families. As President Clinton noted of the 1996 habeas-corpus reforms, 
``it should not take eight or nine years and three trips to the Supreme 
Court to finalize whether a person in fact was properly convicted or 
not.'' For the sake of all parties, we should minimize these delays.
  The 1996 habeas corpus reforms were supposed to prevent delays in 
Federal collateral review. Unfortunately, as the Justice Department 
noted in testimony before the House Crime Subcommittee in March 2003, 
there still are ``significant gaps [in the habeas corpus statutes] . . 
. which can result in highly protracted litigation, and some of the 
reforms that Congress did adopt in 1996 have been substantially 
undermined in judicial application.''
  The Streamlined Procedures Act is designed to fill some of these 
gaps. First, the SPA imposes reasonable but firm time limits on court 
of appeals' review of Federal habeas petitions. It requires a court of 
appeals to decide a habeas appeal within 300 days of the completion of 
briefing, to rule on a petition for rehearing within 90 days, and to 
decide a case on rehearing within 120 days before the same panel, or 
180 days before an en banc court.
  As generous as these time limits are, they would make a real 
difference in some cases. In Morales v. Woodford, 336 F.3d 1136, 9th 
Cir. 2003, for example, the Ninth Circuit took 3 years to decide the 
case after briefing was completed. And after issuing its decision, the 
court took another 16 months to reject a petition for rehearing. 
Similarly, in Williams v. Woodford, 306 F.3d 665, 9th Cir. 2002, the 
court waited 25 months to decide the case--and then waited another 27 
months to reject a petition for rehearing, for a total delay of almost 
4\1/2\ years after appellate briefing had been completed. This is too 
long for either defendants or victims to have to wait.
  The SPA also bars courts of appeals from rehearing successive-
petition applications on their own motion--current law bars petitions 
for rehearing or certiorari for such applications, but some courts have 
interpreted this restriction to not preclude rehearing by the court of 
appeals sua sponte. The SPA also bars Federal courts from tolling the 
current 1-year deadline on filing habeas claims for reasons other than 
those authorized by the statute, and clarifies when a State appeal is 
pending for purposes of tolling the deadline.
  In addition, the SPA creates uniform, clear procedures for review of 
procedurally improper claims. Current judicial caselaw creates a series 
of different standards for addressing claims in a Federal petition that 
were not exhausted in state court, that were presented in a late 
amendment, or that were procedurally defaulted. The SPA sets a uniform 
standard, allowing procedurally improper claims to go forward only if 
they present meaningful evidence that the defendant did not commit the 
crime, with all other improper claims barred.
  The SPA also expands and improves the special expedited habeas 
procedures authorized in chapter 154 of the United States Code. These 
procedures are available to States that establish a system for 
providing high-quality legal representation to capital defendants. 
Chapter 154 sets strict time limits on Federal court action and places 
limits on claims. Currently, however, the court that decides whether a 
State is eligible for chapter 154 is the same court that would be 
subject to its time limits. Unsurprisingly, these courts

[[Page S5541]]

have proven resistant to chapter 154. The SPA would place the 
eligibility decision in the hands of a neutral party--the U.S. Attorney 
General, with review of his decision in the DC Circuit, which does not 
hear habeas appeals. The SPA also makes chapter 154's deadlines more 
practical by limiting the claims that can be raised under its 
provisions to those presenting meaningful evidence that the defendant 
did not commit the crime, and by extending the time for a district 
court to review and rule on a chapter 154 petition from 6 months to 15 
months.
  The SPA also eliminates duplicative Federal review of minor 
sentencing errors that already have been judged by State courts to be 
harmless or not prejudicial. It limits Federal courts to asking only 
whether the type of sentencing error at issue is one that could not 
have been harmless.
  The SPA also applies the deferential review standard enacted in the 
1996 reforms to all pending cases. Remarkably, some current habeas 
petitions still are not governed by the 1996 reforms. The SPA corrects 
this oversight, ending the need to apply the pre-1996 legal regime to 
any cases that still are being litigated today.
  And finally, the SPA limits judicial review of State clemency and 
pardon decisions, guaranteeing that a State won't be sued for 
formalizing and regularizing its pardon procedures; it limits 
defendants' ability to ask Federal courts for investigatory funds 
without allowing prosecutors to be present and rebut defense 
allegations; and it guarantees a crime victim's right to be notified 
of, to be present at, and to speak at a criminal defendant's Federal 
habeas hearing.
  To many people, the issues addressed by the SPA--petitions for 
rehearing, State remedies exhaustion, procedural default, chapter 154, 
AEDPA deference--may seem abstract and remote. For surviving crime 
victims, however, these matters can be very concrete.
  A case recently in the news illustrates the importance of these 
concerns: that of the man who murdered three member of the Ryen family 
and Christopher Hughes in Chino Hills, California in June 1983. The 
killer in that case was an escaped convict from a nearby prison. He has 
since admitted that he spent 2 days hiding in a vacant house next to 
the home of the Ryen family. After several unsuccessful telephone calls 
to friends asking them to give him a ride, the killer took a hatchet 
and buck knife from the vacant house and set out to find a vehicle. The 
California Supreme Court describes the rest of what occurred, 53 Cal.3d 
771, 794-95:

       On Saturday, June 4, 1983, the Ryens and Chris Hughes 
     attended a barbecue in Los Serranos, a few miles from the 
     Ryen home in Chino. Chris had received permission to spend 
     the night with the Ryens. Between 9 and 9:30 p.m., they left 
     to drive to the Ryen home. Except for Josh [the Ryen's 8-
     year-old son], they were never seen alive again.
       The next morning, June 5, Chris's mother, Mary Hughes, 
     became concerned when he did not come home. A number of 
     telephone calls to the Ryen residence received only busy 
     signals. [Mary's husband] William went to the Ryen home to 
     investigate.
       William observed the Ryen truck at the home, but not the 
     family station wagon. Although the Ryens normally did not 
     lock the house when they were home, it was locked on this 
     occasion. William walked around the house trying to look 
     inside. When he reached the sliding glass doors leading to 
     the master bedroom, he could see inside. William saw the 
     bodies of his son and Doug and Peggy Ryen on the bedroom 
     floor. Josh was lying between Peggy and Chris. Only Josh 
     appeared alive.
       William frantically tried to open the sliding door; in his 
     emotional state, he pushed against the fixed portion of the 
     doors, not the sliding door. He rushed to the kitchen door, 
     kicked it in, and entered. As he approached the master 
     bedroom, he found Jessica on the floor, also apparently dead. 
     In the bedroom, William touched the body of his son. It was 
     cold and stiff. William asked Josh who had done it. Josh 
     appeared stunned; he tried to talk but could only make 
     unintelligible sounds.
       William tried to use a telephone in the house but it did 
     not work. He drove to a neighbor's house seeking help. The 
     police arrived shortly. Doug, Peggy, Chris, and Jessica were 
     dead, the first three in the master bedroom, Jessica in the 
     hallway leading to that bedroom. Josh was alive but in shock, 
     suffering from an obvious neck wound. He was flown by 
     helicopter to Loma Linda University Hospital.
       The victims died from numerous chopping and stabbing 
     injuries. Doug Ryen had at least 37 separate wounds, Peggy 
     32, Jessica 46, and Chris 25. The chopping wounds were 
     inflicted by a sharp, heavy object such as a hatchet or axe, 
     the stabbing wounds by a weapon such as a knife.

  The escaped prisoner who committed this crime was caught 2 months 
later. Again, he admitted that he stayed in the house next door, but 
denied any involvement in the murders. According to the California 
Supreme Court, however, the evidence of defendant's guilt was 
``overwhelming.'' Not only had the defendant stayed at the vacant house 
right next door at the time of the murders; the hatchet used in the 
murders was taken from the vacant house; shoe prints in the Ryen house 
matched those in the vacant house and were from a type of shoe issued 
to prisoners; bloody items, including a prison-issue button, were found 
in the vacant house; prison-issue tobacco was found in the Ryen station 
wagon, which was recovered in Long Beach; and defendant's blood type 
and hair matched that found in the Ryen house. Defendant was convicted 
of the murders and sentenced to death in 1985, and the California 
Supreme Court upheld the defendant's conviction and sentence in 1991.
  The defendant's Federal habeas proceedings began shortly thereafter, 
and they continue to this day--22 years after the murders. In 2000, the 
defendant asked the courts for DNA testing of a blood spot in the Ryen 
house, a t-shirt near the crime scene, and the tobacco found in the 
car. Despite the overwhelming evidence of his guilt, the courts allowed 
more testing. All three tests found that the blood and saliva matched 
defendant, to a degree of certainty of one in 320 billion. Blood on the 
t-shirt matched both the defendant and one of the victims.
  One might have thought that this would end the case. Not so. In 
February 2004, the en banc Ninth Circuit sua sponte authorized 
defendant to file a second habeas petition to pursue theories that 
police had planted this DNA evidence. Since the evidence had been in 
court custody since 1983, the Ninth Circuit's theory not only required 
police to plan and execute a vast conspiracy to plant the evidence--it 
also required them to foresee the future invention of the DNA 
technology that would make that evidence useful in future habeas 
proceedings.
  The Streamlined Procedures Act would have made a difference in this 
case. For example, it would have eliminated the need to return to state 
court to exhaust new claims, reducing the delay in the Federal 
proceedings by nearly 3 years. It would have applied the 1996 reforms 
to this case, allowing deferential review of state factual findings and 
legal analysis. It would have placed time limits on Federal appeals 
court decisionmaking and grants of rehearing. And it would have 
prevented the court of appeals from ordering rehearing of the 
defendant's successive-petition application on its own motion, thereby 
barring the current round of O.J. Simpson-style conspiracy-theory 
litigation. The SPA could have brought this case to closure a long time 
ago.
  And this case deserves to be brought to closure. One cannot 
underestimate the grievous impact that crimes like these have on the 
families of the victims. Mary Hughes, the mother of 11-year-old 
Christopher Hughes, who was sleeping over at the Ryen house on the 
night of the murders, has spoken movingly of the loss of her son:

       Christopher Hughes loved his bicycle, swimming and showing 
     off for his mom and dad.
       The 11-year-old's bedroom was filled with swimming trophies 
     and Star Wars collectibles. He was a handsome kid who was 
     chased by a lot of fifth-grade girls on the playground during 
     recess at Our Lady of the Assumption in Claremont.
       He wasn't short on friends, either.
       Christopher really liked Joshua Ryen, an 8-year-old boy who 
     lived up the street from him. They would trick-or-treat 
     together on Halloween, play together, and their parents were 
     good friends.
       On the night of June 4 1983, Christopher asked his parents 
     if he could spend the night at the Ryen house.
       It was a decision that would change the Hughes family 
     forever.
       [Mary Hughes'] son Christopher would have been 32 today. 
     She sometimes wonders who he would have been, what he 
     would've looked like, and even during her most solemn 
     moments, she wonders what life would've been like if Cooper 
     had never gone to the Ryens' house.
       ``It never really ever gets better,'' she said. ``Kevin 
     Cooper robbed him of the chance to be a child, to attend his 
     first dance, to have a girlfriend, and to one day get married 
     and

[[Page S5542]]

     have kids of his own. He robbed me of my child.''
       Mary Ann Hughes does have one special memory of her son she 
     holds close to her heart. A week before his death, she took 
     him to see the movie ``Return of the Jedi.''
       ``He was so happy. It was such a great day,'' she said. 
     ``It seems like such a small thing, but it's the best memory 
     I have of both of us.'' (Sara Carter, ``He Was at the 
     Beginning of His Life When He Died,'' Inland Valley Daily 
     Bulletin, February 9, 2004.)

  In light of how much the surviving family already has suffered, one 
might expect that all participants in the criminal proceedings would 
take great concern and care for the feelings of the family. 
Unfortunately, that has not been the case. The Ninth Circuit has proved 
willing to turn the appeals into a three-ring circus, allowing 
continual pursuit of the most frivolous conspiracy theories. The impact 
of these now 22 years of trial and appeals on the victims' families has 
been predictable: they feel that they and the victims have become 
irrelevant to the entire process. Shortly after the Ninth Circuit 
authorized an additional round of appeals in this case, a local 
newspaper described what the families have experienced:

       For nearly 20 years, since convicted murderer Kevin Cooper 
     was sentenced to death for the 1983 slayings of a Chino Hills 
     family and their young houseguest, families of the victims 
     have waited silently for the day the hand of justice would 
     grant them peace.
       For those families, the last two decades have seemed like 
     an eternity.
       ``I lived through a nightmare,'' said Herbert Ryen, whose 
     brother Douglas Ryen was among those killed, along with 
     Douglas' wife Peggy, their 11-year-old daughter Jessica, and 
     her 10-year-old friend Christopher Hughes.
       [O]n the morning of Feb. 9, [2004,] the day of Cooper's 
     scheduled death by lethal injection, word came down that the 
     9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had decided to block the 
     execution.
       [T]o the Ryen and Hughes families, the stay just hours 
     before Cooper's scheduled execution at San Quentin State 
     Prison was nearly incomprehensible. The indefinite delay has 
     left them in a sort of emotional limbo, questioning whether 
     the legal system had abandoned them.
       ``The bottom line is that this whole issue is not about 
     Kevin Cooper . . . it is about the death penalty,'' said Mary 
     Ann Hughes, the mother of Christoper Hughes. ``We're so mad--
     mad because we feel as though the courts turned their back on 
     my son.''
       ``They (Court of Appeals) are holding us hostage,'' Hughes 
     said.
       For Herbert Ryen and his wife Sue, waiting for justice has 
     taken an equally destructive toll on their lives. The torment 
     their family experienced following the murders, and the 
     subsequent years lost to depression, could never be replaced, 
     he said from his home in Arizona.
       Mary Ann Hughes said the pain her family suffers is only 
     amplified by the seemingly continuous bombardment of 
     celebrities campaigning against Cooper's execution. She 
     wonders who will cry out in anger for the victims.
       One former television star and anti-death penalty activist, 
     Mike Farrell of the popular series MASH, spoke of the case on 
     a recent news program.
       ``He claimed that we must feel relieved since the stay of 
     execution was granted,'' Hughes said. ``How can (Farrell) 
     have the audacity to say he knows what we are feeling?''
       Farrell could not be reached for comment.
       Since Christopher's death, the Hughes family has chosen to 
     remain out of the media spotlight. And until recently, their 
     efforts were successful, due largely to the support of their 
     surviving children, family members and a strong network of 
     close friends, Hughes said.
       The court's decision Feb. 9 has re-opened the case, forcing 
     the families to re-live the nightmare they have fought so 
     hard to leave behind, they say.
       Mary Ann Hughes is left wondering about other families who 
     have had loved ones taken from them, about the legal battles 
     they have had to endure in their own quests for justice.
       She thinks of the parents of Samantha Runion, the 5-year-
     old Orange County girl who was murdered in 2003, and of what 
     her family could face in the next 20 years.
       For Bill Hughes, the anguish is intensified--he will 
     forever know the pain of walking into the Ryens' home the 
     morning after the murders, and finding his son, dead and 
     covered in blood near the Ryens' bedroom door. He was also 
     the first to discover Joshua Ryen, also drenched in blood, 
     clinging to life.
       ``It is a memory he will always have to live with,'' Mary 
     Ann Hughes said.
       Indeed, time has been no friend to the victims' families, 
     as California's recent appellate court ruling has further 
     denied them closure, she added.
       ``What this decision has done to our legal system in 
     California is unthinkable,'' she said. ``Somewhere along the 
     line, the courts have got to uphold the law, and we will wait 
     it out until they do.'' (Sara Carter, ``Families of Murder 
     Victims Wait for Justice in Cooper Case,'' Inland Valley 
     Daily Bulletin, February 24, 2004.)

  Mary Hughes' story demonstrates why the use of Federal judicial power 
must be measured and fair it illustrates the heavy cost imposed by 
judicial excess.
  No statement, however, better explains the gross cruelty caused by 
allowing endless litigation and appeals in a case like this than that 
given by one of the surviving victims of the 1983 attack. Josh Ryen was 
8 years old when he was stabbed in his parents' bedroom and his parents 
and sister were murdered. He is now 30 years old. On April 22, 2005, he 
gave a statement pursuant to the recently enacted Crime Victims' Rights 
Act in the federal habeas corpus hearing for his parents and sister's 
killer. I will close my remarks by asking unanimous consent that Josh 
Ryen's statement be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

Statement of Joshua Ryen, United States District Court for the District 
                              of San Diego

       April 22, 2005.--The first time I met Kevin Cooper I was 8 
     years old and he slit my throat. He hit me with a hatchet and 
     put a hole in my skull. He stabbed me twice, which broke my 
     ribs and collapsed one lung. I lived only because I stuck 
     four fingers in my neck to slow the bleeding, but I was too 
     weak to move. I laid there 11 hours looking at my mother who 
     was right beside me.
       I know now he came through the sliding glass door and 
     attacked my dad first. He was lying on the bed and was struck 
     in the dark without warning with the hatchet and knife. He 
     was hit many times because there is a lot of blood on the 
     wall on his side of the bed.
       My mother screamed and Cooper came around the bed and 
     started hitting her. Somehow my dad was able to struggle 
     between the bed and the closet but Cooper bludgeoned my 
     father to death with the knife and hatchet, stabbing him 26 
     times and axing him 11. One of the blows severed his finger 
     and it landed in the closet. My mother tried to get away but 
     he caught her at the bottom of the bed and he stabbed her 25 
     times and axed her 7.
       All of us kids were drawn to the room by mom's screams. 
     Jessica was killed in the doorway with 5 ax blows and 46 
     stabs. I won't say how many times my best friend Chris was 
     stabbed and axed, not because it isn't important, but because 
     I don't want to hurt his family in any way, and they are 
     here.
       After Cooper killed everyone, and thought he had killed me, 
     he went over to my sister and lifted her shirt and drew 
     things on her stomach with the knife. Then he walked down the 
     hallway, opened the refrigerator, and had a beer. I guess 
     killing so many people can make a man thirsty.
       I don't want to be here. I came because I owe it to my 
     family, who can't speak for themselves. But by coming I am 
     acknowledging and validating the existence of Kevin Cooper, 
     who should have been blotted from the face of the earth a 
     long time ago. By coming here it shows that he still controls 
     me. I will be free, my life will start, the day Kevin Cooper 
     dies. I want to be rid of him, but he won't go away.
       I've been trying to get away from him since I was 8 years 
     and I can't escape. He haunts me and follows me. For over 20 
     years all I've heard is Kevin Cooper this and Kevin Cooper 
     that. Kevin Cooper says he is innocent, Kevin Cooper says he 
     was framed, Kevin Cooper says DNA will clear him, Kevin 
     Cooper says blood was planted, Kevin Cooper says the tennis 
     shoes aren't his, Kevin Cooper says three guys did it, Kevin 
     Cooper says police planted evidence, Kevin Cooper gets 
     another stay from another court and sends everyone off on 
     another wild goose chase.
       The courts say there isn't any harm when Kevin Cooper gets 
     another stay and another hearing. This just shows they don't 
     care about me, because every time he gets another delay I am 
     harmed and have to relive the murders all over again. Every 
     time Kevin Cooper opens his mouth everyone wants to know what 
     I think, what I have to say, how I'm feeling, and the whole 
     nightmare floods all over me again: the barbecue, me begging 
     to let Chris spend the night, me in my bed and him on the 
     floor beside me, my mother's screams, Chris gone, dark house, 
     hallway, bushy hair, everything black, mom cut to pieces 
     saturated in blood, the nauseating smell of blood, eleven 
     hours unable to move, light filtering in, Chris' father at 
     the window, the horror of his face, sound of the front door 
     splintering, my pajamas being cut off, people trying to save 
     me, the whap whap of the helicopter blades, shouted 
     questions, everything fading to black.
       Every time Cooper claims he's innocent and sends people 
     scurrying off on another wild goose chase, I have to relive 
     the murders all over again. It runs like a horror movie, over 
     and over again and never stops because he never shuts up. He 
     puts PR people on national television who say outrageous 
     things and then the press wants to know what I think. What I 
     think is that I would like to be rid of Kevin Cooper. I would 
     like for him to go away. I would like to never hear from 
     Kevin Cooper again. I would like Kevin Cooper to pay for what 
     he did.
       I dread happy times like Christmas and Thanksgiving. If I 
     go to a friend's house on

[[Page S5543]]

     holidays I look at all the mothers and fathers and children 
     and grandchildren and get sad because I have no one. Kevin 
     Cooper took them from me.
       I get terrified when I go into any place dark, like a house 
     before the lights are on. I hear screams and see flashbacks 
     and shadows. Even with lights on I see terrible things. After 
     I was stabbed and axed I was too weak to move and stared at 
     my mother all night. I smelled this overpowering smell of 
     fresh blood and knew everyone had been slaughtered.
       Every day when I comb my hair I feel the hole where he 
     buried the hatchet in my head, and when I look in the mirror 
     I see the scar where he cut my throat from ear to ear and I 
     put four fingers in it to stop the bleeding which, they say, 
     saved my life. Every year I lose hearing in my left ear where 
     he buried the knife.
       Helicopters give me flashbacks of life flight and my 
     Incredible Hulks being cut off by paramedics. Bushy hair 
     reminds me of the killer. Silence reminds me of the quiet 
     before the screams. Cooper is everywhere. There is no escape 
     from him.
       I feel very guilty and responsible to the Hughes family 
     because I begged them to let Chris spend the night. If I 
     hadn't done that he wouldn't have died. I apologize to them 
     and especially to Mr. Hughes for having to find us and see 
     his son cut and stabbed to death.
       I thank the judge who gave my grandma custody of me because 
     she took good care of me and loves me very much.
       I'm grateful to the ocean for giving me peace because when 
     I go there I know my mother and father and sister's ashes are 
     sprinkled there.
       Kevin Cooper has movie stars and Jesse Jackson holding 
     rallies for him, people carrying signs, lighting candles, 
     saying prayers. To them and you I say:

     I was 8 when he slit my throat,
     It was dark and I couldn't see.

     Through the night and day I laid there,
     trying to get up and flee.

     He killed my mother, father, sister, friend,
     And started stalking me.
     I try to run and flee from him but cannot get away,
     While he demands petitions and claims, some fresh absurdity.
     Justice has no ear for me nor cares about my plight,
     while crowds pray for the killer and light candles in the 
           night.
     To those who long for justice and love truth which sets men 
           free, When you pray
     your prayers tonight, please remember me.

                                 ______