Newly offered amendments won’t jeopardize my bill to allow wrongly convicted prisoners to present newly discovered evidence.
At this late hour, prosecutors are proposing changes to my bill creating a writ of innocence. They would be offered in a conference committee, except the conferees won’t be meeting.
The Senate crossfile of this legislation has already passed. That bill can be signed by the Governor.
I’m not going to accept weakening amendments to my bill so that it too can be reviewed and then signed by the Governor.
If both bills were to pass the legislature, the prosecutors would lobby the Governor to sign only the one with my name and their amendments.
So my chairman has agreed not to have the House conferees meet.
You can get a lot done, the old saying goes, if you don’t have to get all the credit for doing so.
Showing posts with label Innocence claim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Innocence claim. Show all posts
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
No notes
I try to practice what I preach.
“Don’t use notes when you’re testifying on a bill or making your oral argument,” I tell my law school students. “Know the issue well enough so that you don’t need notes as a crutch.”
I spoke without notes when I testified on my voting rights and Lilly Ledbetter legislation last week. What those bills would do and why we need them I can speak to with passion.
Not so with two bills dealing with wills that I introduced at the request of the Maryland State Bar Association. Estates and trust law was one of the many business-oriented classes that I didn’t take at law school.
So I made sure that a lawyer from the Bar Association would be sitting next to me to help me answer any questions that arose.
On Tuesday, I’ll be testifying on my bill to require that when an inmate makes a post-conviction claim of innocence, a judge must hold a hearing on the merits.
I met with attorneys from the Office of the Public Defender last week. They told me that such a claim would not be heard today if filed after a certain time period, and I practiced the arguments I would make.
My pre-testimony testimony left me with a better understanding of the issue. But I still want an attorney sitting next to me at the witness table.
“Don’t use notes when you’re testifying on a bill or making your oral argument,” I tell my law school students. “Know the issue well enough so that you don’t need notes as a crutch.”
I spoke without notes when I testified on my voting rights and Lilly Ledbetter legislation last week. What those bills would do and why we need them I can speak to with passion.
Not so with two bills dealing with wills that I introduced at the request of the Maryland State Bar Association. Estates and trust law was one of the many business-oriented classes that I didn’t take at law school.
So I made sure that a lawyer from the Bar Association would be sitting next to me to help me answer any questions that arose.
On Tuesday, I’ll be testifying on my bill to require that when an inmate makes a post-conviction claim of innocence, a judge must hold a hearing on the merits.
I met with attorneys from the Office of the Public Defender last week. They told me that such a claim would not be heard today if filed after a certain time period, and I practiced the arguments I would make.
My pre-testimony testimony left me with a better understanding of the issue. But I still want an attorney sitting next to me at the witness table.
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