1115.org

The Bush administration has decided that we’re not executed prisoners fast enough. Presumably, too many were surviving till DNA testing — or other new evidence — proved their innocence. And then you have the whole big mess of having to release them, which not only causes loss-of-face to the system and the people who investigated and prosecuted the case — often with malice aforethought — but also leads to lawsuits and other regrettable consequences.

The elegant solution is to simply speed up their execution, by cutting short the appeals process. In the charming Bushie new-speak, this is known as “fast-tracking death penalty appeals”.

And when you want something done wrong, or something wrong done, who you are going to turn to? That’s right, the choice of millions, the pride of his mother’s eye, Alberto Buttercheeks Gonzales:

The Justice Department is putting the final touches on regulations that could give Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales important new sway over death penalty cases in California and other states, including the power to shorten the time that death row inmates have to appeal convictions to federal courts.

The rules implement a little-noticed provision in last year’s reauthorization of the Patriot Act that gives the attorney general the power to decide whether individual states are providing adequate counsel for defendants in death penalty cases. The authority has been held by federal judges.

Under the rules now being prepared, if a state requested it and Gonzales agreed, prosecutors could use “fast track” procedures that could shave years off the time that a death row inmate has to appeal to the federal courts after conviction in a state court.

The move to shorten the appeals process and effectively speed up executions comes at a time of growing national concern about the fairness of the death penalty, underscored by the use of DNA testing to establish the innocence of more than a dozen death row inmates in recent years.