And yet Hyde has personally championed legislation that significantly curtails the judicial review of death-row appeals.

The Rehnquist Court already has sharply limited death-row appeals.

Most were motivated by their opposition to the limits on death-row appeals.

Would the justices be so quick to deny death-row appeals if one of them had a son scheduled for execution?

But it departs most significantly from Mr. Clinton's plan in its call for restricting death-row appeals in Federal courts.

That has led him to endorse expanding the Federal death penalty, limiting death-row appeals and spending billions for prison construction.

"We say habeas corpus, they say sure," one Republican expert on criminal justice said, referring to restrictions on death-row appeals.

And it would utterly undo existing law, which, since a 1987 Supreme Court ruling, has made such statistics all but irrelevant in death-row appeals.

The provisions limiting death-row appeals would generally impose deadlines of six months following final actions by state courts for inmates to file habeas corpus petitions.

While the Supreme Court has sharply eroded habeas corpus in death-row appeals, the legislation would go considerably further.