In particular, you support the proposed Racial Justice Act and extol its provisions to authorize successive habeas corpus petitions challenging convictions and sentences in capital cases.

In the last few years, the Court has placed strict curbs on the ability of state prison inmates to challenge their convictions or sentences in Federal court.

He also said the precedent was limited to providing legal materials that inmates need to challenge their convictions, sentences or conditions of confinement.

Where the Rehnquist majority had been disparaging use of the writ of habeas corpus in Federal court to challenge state-imposed sentences, Justice Breyer praised the writ's potential for reversing "a grievous wrong."

The Government said it already planned legislation to make it easier for the Justice Department to challenge sentences seen as unduly lenient.

Nor are commutation requests generally accepted from persons who are presently challenging their convictions or sentences through appeal or other court proceeding.

He has voted consistently to restrict access to the Federal courts by state prisoners challenging their convictions or sentences through petitions for writs of habeas corpus, an issue on which the Court is narrowly split.

But an ambiguous 1989 decision indicated that habeas petitions, which are civil suits challenging unjust convictions and sentences, may be a different matter.

Yet if they are to challenge their convictions or sentences, they must master the hyper-technical intricacies of Alabama's rules of criminal procedure, conduct investigations from behind prison walls and prepare and file their own petitions for post-conviction relief.

The case, referred under powers to challenge unduly lenient sentences introduced in February, is the first in which the Appeal Court has refused to substitute a stiffer sentence.