Plan Could Let Condemned Get Hearing for Fresh Facts : Law: Clinton crime package seeks to reverse high court decision saying Death Row inmates are not entitled to review of new evidence by U.S. judge.

A little-noticed provision of President Clinton’s anti-crime package would for the first time give Death Row inmates a right to a hearing before a federal judge if they can show strong new evidence that they are not guilty.

The proposed change in the federal Habeas Corpus Act would reverse a recent Supreme Court ruling that declared inmates facing execution are not entitled to an eleventh-hour hearing to submit “newly discovered evidence of actual innocence.”

On a 5-4 vote, the high court said that federal judges can review legal issues but not factual questions involving alleged new evidence. Shortly after the January ruling, the Texas inmate who brought the case, Leonel Herrera, was put to death. State officials did not grant him a hearing to consider testimony from witnesses who claimed that Herrera’s brother, not the defendant, had committed the murders.

Last year Roger Coleman, a Virginia coal miner who was convicted of murdering his sister-in-law, was also put to death without getting a hearing in federal court on his lawyers’ claim that another man in the small town had confessed to the murder.

The issue also figures in the highly publicized case of Gary Graham, a Texas Death Row inmate who claims to be a victim of mistaken identity. Because federal courts cannot consider such claims, Graham’s fate rests with state officials in Texas.

In recent years, the Supreme Court has moved to cut off federal appeals by state Death Row inmates. Prosecutors and crime victims complain that inmates should not be permitted to stretch out their appeals, a process that at times lasts for decades.

For the most part, Clinton’s crime bill proposes to write these new restrictions into law. For example, the bill sets a 180-day time limit for state Death Row prisoners to raise appeals in the federal courts. After those appeals are considered and rejected, the inmate would be barred from filing new appeals.

But an exception is made if new evidence comes to light.

“This is an important development, and it is the first time it will be part of the habeas law,” said Deputy Associate Atty. Gen. Harry Litman, who worked on the death penalty provisions of the crime package. “It sets a high standard because we don’t want to open it up for abuse. But it says if you are innocent, you can get a hearing,” he said.

The legislation does not limit the number of such hearings an inmate can receive.

The death penalty proposals were introduced in the Senate earlier this month by Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.). They are part of a larger anti-crime package unveiled by Clinton on Aug. 11.

Besides revising the rules for handling appeals, the bill makes 47 more offenses--ranging from murdering a federal official to the terrorist killing of an American citizen abroad--punishable by a federal death penalty.

While prosecutors want to halt seemingly endless appeals, opponents of capital punishment say that the long litigation often stems from the failure of accused murderers to get well-trained lawyers in the first place.

Especially in rural Southern communities, death penalty opponents say, the appointed lawyers often fail to investigate the facts and lack basic knowledge of the law concerning capital cases. Years of appeals then follow because the defendant’s rights were shortchanged during the trial.

The crime bill would require states to provide attorneys who have experience investigating and defending clients in capital cases. As a trade-off, the states are promised that appeals will be limited.