US Courts: “The Judicial Conference has expressed concerns about proposed regulations issued by the Department of Justice for states seeking to qualify for expedited federal habeas corpus review procedures in capital cases. Concerns about the certification-implementation regulations proposed June 6, 2007, were aired in an August 1 letter from the Conference to DOJ. In 1996, Congress enacted Chapter 154 of the U.S. Code’s Title 28 as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). Chapter 154 provides for expedited procedures in federal capital habeas corpus cases when a state is able to establish that it has provided qualified, competent, adequately resourced, and adequately compensated counsel in state post-conviction proceedings to inmates facing a capital sentence…In its letter, the Conference urged DOJ to revise the proposed regulations to provide definitions of “standards of competency,” “competent counsel,” “compensation of appointed counsel,” and “reasonable litigation expenses.” The Conference noted that “[s]uch definitions are needed to provide guidance, criteria, or other notice of what a state must do to satisfy the statutory or regulatory requirements.”