When the Senate was debating the so-called effective death penalty amendment to the Anti-Terrorism bill almost four years ago, one senator made a rousing call for its defeat.

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-NY, who on many issues has been a centrist in the Democratic Party, declared, "If I had the choice of living in a country with no elections but a full habeas corpus right, or with elections and no habeas corpus, I'd choose the country with no elections."

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a conservative and an ardent supporter of the Effective Death Penalty Act, argues that habeas corpus in common law is a "pretrial right," and that the application of habeas corpus to cases after conviction is just a law, not a fundamental right.

But over on the far right of the political spectrum, where the idea of States' rights sits next to belief in god and country, Erich Pratt, director of federal affairs for the Gun Owners of America, says, "It's true that we believe political power should devolve to the states, but in the area of constitutional rights, that clearly is an area where the federal courts should have absolute jurisdiction."

Hofstra law professor Leon Friedman, a noted civil rights attorney and one of the lawyers who handled the overturning of boxer Reuben "Hurricane" Carter's murder conviction, points to a grand irony.

"All these new emerging democracies that have thrown off dictatorships, from the Philippines to the countries of Eastern Europe -- the first thing they have done is to establish a habeas corpus rule to protect their citizens from the tyranny of government. And here we are in America moving in the opposite direction."

-- Dave Lindorff