Graham Urges Time Limit on Death Appeals

Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), saying Ted Bundy’s decade on Death Row was a “typical abuse of the system,” introduced legislation Wednesday to set a time limit on prisoners’ habeas corpus appeals.

“I realize that habeas corpus is a cherished right of Americans,” Graham said at a news conference. “But I also understand that achieving justice is as well.”

Graham’s bill would place a one-year limit on filing applications for habeas corpus-- claims of illegal detention that require a court hearing--for state prisoners, and a two-year limit on filing habeas corpus appeals in federal cases.

No Application Limit

There is no current limit on habeas corpus applications, and prisoners sentenced to death often wait years before filing the appeals to delay their executions.

Bundy was executed Tuesday in Florida’s electric chair for the 1978 murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach. He confessed in his final three days to the slayings of 28 women in several states during a 1970s murder spree. He had been on Death Row for 10 years.

Graham was reluctant to discuss Bundy, saying he did not want to “personalize” the issue. But, predicting that the bill would receive more attention this year than it did when he first offered it in 1987, Graham said, “The events of the last few hours have underscored this.”

‘Typical Abuse’

The senator said a Florida state’s attorney had told him that Bundy’s decade of appeals was “a typical abuse of the system.”

A commission headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. is studying the abuses of habeas corpus and is expected to present its recommendations later this year.

“I believe the increased attention being focused on long delays without any apparent contribution to finding the facts on the case will help move this bill through,” Graham said.