The USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act (Reauthorization Act) contains a number of death penalty related provisions. Some create new federal capital offenses; some add the death penalty as a sentencing option in the case of pre-existing federal crimes; some alter the procedural attributes of federal capital cases. Other proposals offered during the 109 th Congress would have followed the same pattern: some new crimes; some new penalties for old crimes; and some procedural adjustments. Only one of the other proposals, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, passed, although at least one House approved several others. Three proposals do not fit the pattern; they either would have abolished the death penalty as a federal sentencing alternative or would have imposed a moratorium upon executions. The Reauthorization Act changes procedures associated with federal capital cases including those relating to air piracy cases arising before 1994, capital offenses under federal drug laws, appointment of counsel in capital cases, and habeas procedures for state capital petitioners. In the early 1970s, the U.S. Supreme Court held unconstitutional the imposition of capital punishment under the procedures then employed by the federal government and most of the states. In 1974, Congress established a revised procedure for imposition of the death penalty in certain air piracy cases. In 1994, when Congress made the procedural adjustments necessary to revive the death penalty as a sentencing option for other federal capital offenses, it replaced the air piracy procedures with those of the new regime. At least one court, however, held that the new procedures could not be applied retroactively to air piracy cases occurring after the 1974 fix but before the 1994 legislation, in the absence of an explicit statutory provision. The Reauthorization Act adds an explicit provision to the end of the 1994 legislation. The amendment provides for the application of the existing federal capital punishment procedures, 18 U.S.C. ch.228, after consideration of the mitigating and aggravating factors in place in capital air piracy cases prior to the 1994 revival. It also provides for severance should any of the pre-1994 factors be found constitutionally invalid, and includes a limiting definition of the "especially heinous, cruel, or depraved" aggravating factor in section 46503 to avoid the vagueness problems that might otherwise attend the use of such an aggravating factor. The conference report on the Reauthorization Act notes that the changes apply to a relative small group of individuals responsible for murders committed during the course of hijackings in the mid 1980s who would otherwise be eligible for parole within 10 years of sentencing and could not be effectively sentenced to more than 30 years in prison. H.R. 1763 and H.R. 3060 contained comparable provisions, but lacked the severability clause found in the Reauthorization Act. Federal law provides expedited habeas corpus procedures for state death row inmates in those states that qualify for application of the procedures and have opted to take advantage of them. Subject to a one time 30 day extension, district courts with whom habeas petitions are filed by a prisoner challenging his state capital conviction or sentence must make a final determination within the sooner of 60 days after the case is submitted for decision or 450 days after the application is filed. In such cases, the court of appeals has 120 days after the final briefs have been submitted to render a decision; the court has 30 days to consider a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc and another 30 days to render an en banc decision should it grant rehearing. No such judicial deadlines apply in other federal habeas cases. Before enactment of the Reauthorization Act, these expedited procedures found in chapter 154 applied in capital cases only if the state met certain conditions. "A state must [have] establish[ed] 'a mechanism for the appointment, compensation, and payment of reasonable litigation expenses of competent counsel' in state postconviction proceedings, and 'must [have] provide[d] standards of competency for the appointment of such counsel.'" As of enactment of the Reauthorization Act apparently, few if any states had sought and been found qualified to opt in. Critics implied that the states have been unable to take advantage of the expedited capital procedures only because the courts have a personal stake in the outcome. The solution, they contended, was the amendment found in section 507 of the Reauthorization Act, which allows the Attorney General to determine whether a state qualifies, permits the determination to have retroactive effect, and allows review by the federal appellate court least likely to have an interest in the outcome, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Opponents raised separation of powers issues and questioned whether the chief federal prosecutor or the courts are more likely to make an even handed determination of whether the procedures for providing capital defendants with qualified defense counsel are adequate. Under the Reauthorization Act, states opt-in or have opted-in as of the date, past or present, upon which the Attorney General determines they established or have established qualifying assistance of counsel mechanism. Opting-in to the expedited procedures of chapter 154 only applies, however, to instances in which "counsel was appointed pursuant to that mechanism [for the death row habeas petitioner], petitioner validly waived counsel, petitioner retained counsel, or petitioner was found not to be indigent." The earlier provision required that the mechanism include competency standards for appointed counsel. The Reauthorization Act removed the requirement, but granted the Attorney General regulatory authority sufficient to establish such standards. The Act establishes a de novo standard of review for the Attorney General's determination before the D.C. Circuit. It also extends the expedited time deadline for U.S. district court action on a habeas petition from a state death row inmate from 6 to 15 months (180 days to the sooner of 450 days after filing or 60 days after the completion of all pleadings, hearings, and submission of briefs). The Streamlined Procedures Acts in the House and Senate, H.R. 3035 and S. 1088 , would have made similar changes in the opt in procedure, but set a different standard for appellate review of the Attorney General's decision, and would have included a wide range of habeas amendments unknown to the Reauthorization Act. In McFarland v. Scott , 512 U.S. 849, 859 (1994), the Supreme Court held that federal district courts might stay the execution of a state death row inmate upon the filing of a petition for the appointment of counsel but prior to the filing of a federal habeas petition in order to allow for the assistance of counsel in the filing the petition. In an amendment described as overruling McFarland , the Reauthorization Act amends federal law to permit a stay in such cases of no longer than 90 days after the appointment of counsel or the withdrawal or denial of a request for the appointment of counsel. S. 956 , H.R. 2388 , and H.R. 3132 contained a common amendment governing federal habeas cases of an individual convicted under state law of killing a child, proposed 28 U.S.C. 2254. Habeas under section 2254 would have been unavailable in such cases except for claims that both (1) relied on a new constitutional interpretation made retroactively applicable by the Supreme Court or on evidence that the petitioner could not reasonable have been previously discovered and (2) were predicated upon facts in the face of which no reasonable judge or jury would have found the petitioner guilty but for the constitutional error, proposed 28 U.S.C. 2254(j)(1), (2). Under the bills, judicial consideration of claims that met the dual criterion would have been subject to deadlines under which evidentiary hearings had to be (1) requested within 90 days of the state's answer to the petition and granted or denied within 30 days, (2) held within 60 days and completed within 150 days, and (3) decided within 15 months of the state's answer; the stateÂ could enforce deadlines through a mandamus petition to the court of appeals, proposed 28Â U.S.C. 2254(j)(3). Appellate courts would have had 120 days to pass upon an appeal, 30 days to consider whether to grant a hearing en banc, and 120 days to decide a case en banc, proposed 28 U.S.C. 2254(j)(4). The rights of victims under 18 U.S.C. 3771(b) to be notified, attend, and participate in relevant criminal proceedings would have been expanded to include habeas proceedings under an amendment found in each of the bills, proposed 18 U.S.C. 3771(b). Proponents pointed to examples of delays of up to 20 years between conviction and the completion of habeas proceedings to explain the amendment; they contended that the Supreme Court has upheld past restrictions on protracted federal habeas proceedings conducted on behalf of state prisoners; and they argued the appropriateness of confining relief to those who can establish their innocence. Critics claimed the amendment was unnecessary and that great care should be taken before closing the doors of the federal courts to claims that a state criminal court has convicted an accused and imposed the death penalty in an unconstitutional manner. Some observers might have suggest that the participation of victims in the habeas process is more likely to prolong it than to streamline it. Prior to the Reauthorization Act, federal law provided two sets of death penalty procedures for capital drug cases, the procedures applicable in federal capital cases generally and the procedures specifically applicable in federal capital drug cases. The two procedures were virtually identical and either might be employed in a capital drug case. The Reauthorization Act eliminates the specific drug case procedures so that only the general procedures apply in such cases. According to the conference report, this "eliminates duplicative death procedures under title 21 of the United States code, and consolidates procedures governing all Federal death penalty prosecutions in existing title 18 of the United States Code, thereby eliminating confusing requirements that trial courts provide two separate sets of jury instructions."