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As a key House panel today considered legislation dealing with gang violence, the American Civil Liberties Union renewed its opposition to the direction this measure is taking, citing concerns over the bill’s expansion of federal death penalty provisions and the detrimental impact it would have on young people. "We have a capital punishment system that is already known to be broken; we should not seek to expand it," said Jesselyn McCurdy, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "Addressing gang crime is very important to maintaining public safety. But this measure ultimately fails to honor basic ideals of fairness in our criminal justice system. Congress must reject this misguided legislation." Juvenile justice, criminal justice and capital punishment watchdog groups have criticized H.R. 1279, the Gang Deterrence and Community Protection Act of 2005. A similar bill was introduced last year, but died in the Senate. At a time when many are calling for a thorough review of the capital punishment system, the bill would actually expand the federal death penalty. The bill makes capital punishment an option in a wide range of cases, running counter to the Supreme Court’s requirement that the death penalty be limited to the "worst of the worst." The legislation also includes various mandatory minimums sentences for a broad category of offenses that are labeled "gang crimes." Under this bill, the mandatory minimum sentences for these crimes will range from five to 30 years. "We already know the discriminatory effect of mandatory minimums when in 1999, 77 percent of the individuals receiving mandatory sentences where African American and Latino," McCurdy said. The ACLU also objected to the bill’s provisions that would shift more juveniles into the federal criminal system, saying that the federal system does not have the resources to deal with young people appropriately. Additionally, studies have conclusively shown that placing youth in the adult criminal justice system does nothing to reduce crime and, worse still, has the opposite effect. [more]