Senate Votes to Reject ‘Racial Justice’ Proposal : Crime: The plan would enable defendants to avoid the death penalty if there were evidence of bias in sentencing by state courts.

The Senate, slogging through an anti-crime bill loaded with controversial issues, decisively rejected a “racial justice” plan Thursday that opponents said would have effectively abolished the death penalty.

The proposal of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), defeated 58 to 38, would have enabled defendants in any state to avoid capital punishment if prosecutors failed to prove that racial disparities in sentencing are non-discriminatory.

Opponents acknowledged widespread disparities but they protested that it would be almost impossible to establish that bias was not responsible for the differences.

In related actions, the Senate approved a Republican plan limiting the ability of state Death Row inmates to challenge their sentences in federal court. But it rejected a GOP-sponsored attempt to allow the execution of federal prisoners who are mentally retarded.

As a result of those actions, the pending crime legislation would reinstitute and expand the federal death penalty. No one has been executed at the federal level since 1972, when the Supreme Court ruled that certain procedural safeguards had to be adopted before sentences could be carried out.

Thirty-seven states, including California, now have the necessary safeguards, among them a separate trial for sentencing.

The death penalty is but one of many contentious items in an election-year brawl between Democrats and Republicans over who can pass tougher measures against crime, an issue of great concern to voters, opinion polls show.

The Senate already has approved a Democratic-sponsored ban on “assault weapons,” as well as a GOP plan aimed at making it harder for inmates to delay their executions with habeas corpus appeals.

But the Senate postponed until June 5, when it returns from a Memorial Day recess, consideration of proposals to ease limits on police searches, to crack down on money laundering, to hire more federal police officers, to expand aid to local police agencies and to restructure Justice Department efforts against illegal drugs and organized crime.

Democrats are preparing for a threatened Republican filibuster when Congress returns, largely because of unhappiness over the assault weapons ban adopted Wednesday.

In the House, meanwhile, the Judiciary Committee is preparing its own anti-crime package.

As the Senate debated the death penalty Thursday, President Bush called on Congress to pass a “good, strong, anti-crime bill.”

At a news conference, Bush said he is “not supporting” a Senate-approved expansion of his ban last summer on imported semiautomatic guns that resemble fully automatic military assault weapons. He called instead for a limit on the capacity of the guns’ ammunition clips.

The President maintained that he has not retreated from his support of imposing a 15-bullet limit on the clips. However, aides have acknowledged that Bush and his staff are making no effort to find a sponsor for such an amendment. Moreover, the White House is actively backing a Republican anti-crime package that contains no limits on ammunition clips.

In promoting his “racial justice” plan, Kennedy said many studies show that “those who kill white people are many times more likely to receive the death penalty than those who kill blacks. And there is disturbing evidence that black defendants are more likely to be given a death sentence than white defendants.”

Under Kennedy’s plan, if a defendant could establish that the race of defendants or victims played a role in sentencing decisions, prosecutors seeking the death penalty would have to show that the racial disparities were not the result of discrimination.

Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who moved to strike the provision from the crime bill, said that it would “destroy the right of states to impose the death penalty. . . . It shifts to the state the almost impossible burden of showing a (non-discriminatory) reason for the statistical disparity.”

Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S. C.), denouncing what he called the “racial quota provision,” said it would “permit vicious murderers to avoid a death sentence by using the race of the victims as a shield.”

Kennedy’s plan was endorsed by the American Bar Assn. and civil rights groups. It was opposed by the Administration and the attorneys general of 27 states.

California’s senators split on the plan, with Democrat Alan Cranston voting for it and Republican Pete Wilson voting against it.

Some of the most impassioned debate erupted over a bid by Thurmond to erase from the Democrats’ bill a death penalty exemption for the mentally retarded.

Several Republicans suggested that defendants could easily get themselves certified as retarded, escaping execution.

“I’m not insensitive to mental retardation,” said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah). “I’m sensitive to murder. . . . This is just another way to avoid the death penalty.”

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. said it was inconceivable that the Senate would spare defendants under 17 from the death penalty while executing those with an IQ under 70 and the operational ability of a 12-year-old.

Wilson voted for the Thurmond amendment, while Cranston voted against it.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that the retarded were not exempt from execution, and last week Louisiana executed a retarded man who had killed a police officer. The congressional action regarding the death penalty would apply only to federal prisoners.

The GOP plan to speed up habeas corpus petitions by Death Row inmates would drop the current requirement that state court appeals have to be exhausted before a federal review can begin. Also, prisoners would have to file for federal review of their convictions within 60 days. Federal courts would be asked to complete reviews within a year.

Currently, capital offenders can file an unlimited number of federal appeals; the bill would allow only one round of federal appeals as long as the state provides competent legal counsel.