OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Secure Access to Justice and Protection Act

Date: Nov. 10, 2005
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Death Penalty


SECURE ACCESS TO JUSTICE AND COURT PROTECTION ACT -- (Extensions of Remarks - November 10, 2005)

SPEECH OF
HON. RUSH D. HOLT
OF NEW JERSEY
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2005

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the House considered the so-called Secure Access to Justice and Court Protection Act, H.R.1751.

We have all heard of the tragic and deeply troubling violence directed at judges or other court employees. In just March of this year, U.S. District Judge Joan H. Lefkow came home from a day at work to discover her husband and mother shot dead in the basement. We clearly need to act to help protect the lives and security of all federal court employees, including judges.

H.R. 1751 would authorize the appropriation of additional funds over the next five years to increase court security, and to provide grants to States do the same and to help protect witnesses. The bill would also toughen the penalties on the books for threatening or committing acts of violence against federal judges or court employees.

While I support and believe we need to protect federal court employees, there are too many troubling and fundamental problems with this bill for me to support it.

This bill creates 22 new mandatory minimum penalties. Mandatory minimum penalties do not work. They discount mitigating factors in crimes, prevent judges from meting out punishments that are tailored to the criminal, and mandatory minimum have proven discriminatory to people of color. They may make legislators feel good but they have been shown not to reduce crime rates. Even the Judicial Conference, the group that represents Federal judges, has said that mandatory minimums violate common sense.

Also troubling is the fact that this legislation creates seven additional death penalties. Yet, research has shown that capital punishment is not a deterrent to crime. Let me repeat, the death penalty simply does not reduce crime. The death penalty is also flawed because it is applied unevenly and unjustly along racial lines, and far too often is applied to someone who is only later exonerated, often too late.

Given these two deeply troubling problems with this bill, I cannot support it.

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