In what surely will lead to a U.S. Supreme Court case, California's Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that California cannot make use of the landmark law that assure swift death penalty appeals when condemned prisoners have no lawyer to represent them.

As important, the famed San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Appeals Court -- thronged with federal judges appointed for life -- ruled to uphold an injunction that bars California from enforcing deadlines set for death row inmate appeals by the federal Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

When received by the Supreme Court, the case could be heard solely on the merits of the injuncted section of the 1996, or the high court could rule the entire law invalid.

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 grew out of two major headline events in the past two years -- the Murrah Building bombing in Oklahoma City and the alleged Islamic fundamentalist foreign terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center.

However, tort reform also was contained in the 1996 act, which was called for by President Bill Clinton, introduced by then-Sen. Bob Dole as the last major legislative act of his career, and signed to applause at the White House. Forty Democrat Senators and 51 Republicans voted for the bill, while in the House it was approved by 105 Democrats and 188 GOP members. Needless to say, legislative opposition was sparse and it was "the" coalition bill of last year.

The act dramatically limits habeas corpus, the death row prison inmate appeals process that has been vilified by Republicans as "frivolous" and "excessive."

Under the act, federal courts will defer to state courts in all but a handful of rulings, and death sentences will be carried out within two years of final state court action. House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., called the habeas corpus reform the "the Holy Grail" of the bill.

Some conservatives grumbled that the act failed to go far enough, while liberal opposition centered on the defanging of the habeas corpus process. That maneuver has delayed capital crime trials and sentencing procedures in dozens of states, clogged prisons with death row denizens and cost law enforcement and prosecution precious funds and time to outwait frivolous appeal stalls by capital offenders.

The narrowing of the process of habeas corpus was expected to slim capital offense appeal times so that ultimate justice could be meted out in a fair and timely manner.

Victims' rights groups, from families surviving the two infamous bombings to parents of children slain by pedophiles, hailed the legislation as at least a start toward swift justice following quick crimes that robbed them of loved ones.

The mechanics of the "speeding-up" process were simple: under the law, repeat appeals are strictly limited if the issue raised could have been included in the prisoner's initial appeal.

However, the infamous Ninth Circuit Court held 2-1 that California has not complied with the guidelines that allow states to ``opt in'' to the expedited appeals process. The court said that in California lawyers had not been appointed to represent more than 130 death row inmates last year when prisoner Troy Ashmus challenged the state's right to enforce the deadlines.

The Ninth Circuit Court opinion said that condemned inmates without lawyers were forced to decide either to miss a 180-day deadline to file their appeals or to submit an incomplete petition that might foreclose their right to raise compelling issues later in a repeat appeal. ``Making that choice was not a litigation strategy,'' wrote Circuit Judge David Thompson for the majority. ``It was a matter of life and death.''

At first blush this may appear to be a California prosecutorial procedural snafu, however, in critiquing the "fair" application of the 1996 law's guidelines the Ninth Circuit's judges set a tone that surely will be aped throughout the nation, state by state, until the case does elevate to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Although the Ninth Circuit's batting average with the national high court is abysmal, merely the long process set in motion by the lifelong San Francisco federal judges will stall and delay appropriate punishment to capital offenders across the land.

And, again, the pains of those who are the survivors of victims of capital crimes -- murderers, rapists, brutal child molesters and, yes, even terrorist bombers -- will be extended like the sores that will not heal that until punishment brings a measure of closure.

Ninth Circuit Court Judge Thompson is correct in assessing that the reform of the endless appeals process is "a matter of life and death."

Murderous felons, heretofore relaxed in the hammock of existing appeals processes, took "life," and they should not be able to longtime luxuriate waiting "death."

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