Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, let me explain why, although it sounds reasonable what my friend said. We have gone through the factfinding stage, the trial, this is just on habeas appeals, and why do you want to dig stuff up? Many of the habeas appeals are premised on the following proposition: The defendant says, ``Hey, look, I got convicted, I got convicted unfairly because there was perjured testimony in my trial,'' like a couple trials that were mentioned here today, actually happened. I am not making these up, they happened. It turns out, for example, the prosecutor had a witness that would have said, ``I was with Charlie Smith and he couldn't have committed the crime,'' and the prosecutor never let anybody know that. Conversely, someone gets on the stand in the trial and lies and it is later found out that they lied. The reason why the defense attorney needs to be able to investigate is to be able to root that out. You have a defendant saying, ``Look, I am about to be put to death, but I'm telling you, Charlie Smith lied. If you just go find Harriet Wilson, I found out she knows he lied.'' This is what happened. I am asking my staff to check the Carter case. I am not sure of the facts in the Carter case. If I am not mistaken, there was additional evidence found out after the trial--after the trial. That is why the defendant needs the same tools available to him or her that a wealthy defendant would need or the prosecutor needs. That is all I am saying. Do not be misled by the notion that the trial is over, therefore, there is no other factfinding to go on, you do not need an investigator. For example, in the Hurricane Carter case--I wanted to make sure I was right on my facts here--after the trial was over, Hurricane Carter's lawyers found out that there was a polygraph test given to one of the witnesses, and the outcome of that polygraph test sustained Hurricane Carter's assertion that he was innocent. It was never made available. They never told anybody such a test was done. Therefore, it took investigative work after the trial to go back and dig this out. They dug it out. Old Hurricane Carter ``ain't'' dead now, and the reason he is not dead now is because they dug that, among other facts, out. That is the investigative work we are talking about. Keep in mind now, this does not in any way extend the number of appeals someone [[Page S7820]] can make. This does not in any way extend the time in which appeals have to be filed. This is just simple fairness. Treat poor people like you treat wealthy people during and after the trial. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I would like to make one brief response.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, if I can speak very briefly now to my new amendment, let me make sure that I have it straight for myself, let alone for all of my colleagues. My original amendment was designed to do three things, to change three provisions of the Hatch--I will call it the bill; it is technically an amendment--the thing we are debating, the counterterrorism legislation that is before us. In that counterterrorism legislation, there were a number of provisions, three of which were as follows: One deleted the existing statutory requirement that there be counsel appointed for an indigent at a trial. The second, deleted an existing statutory provision requiring counsel be appointed at a habeas corpus proceeding for an indigent. And the third amended existing law that says counsel for an indigent has the right to go before a Federal judge by himself without the prosecutor present and make a request to the Federal judge for additional resources in order to adequately be able to protect his client's constitutional interests, that is, go in to a Federal judge and say: Judge, I do not have the money to hire an investigator like the prosecutor has that I need to go to x town to interview three people. The way the law exists now, that lawyer for the indigent can do just what a lawyer for a nonindigent can do and what the prosecutor can do. He does not have to tip his hand to the prosecutor to say this is what I am about to do; this is what I am about to investigate; this is what I want to check out. It would be a little bit like in that God-awful O.J. Simpson trial in that if every time the defense hired someone to investigate something, they first had to go to the prosecutor and say: By the way, I am going to hire this investigator to go look at the background of one of the police officers, and I am going to do it on Tuesday, and I am going to interview the following three people. No one would expect defense counsel to have to do that with the prosecution present, would not have to tell the prosecutor that. Conversely, the prosecutor, when they are in the middle of a trial and they say: My goodness--or before a trial--we better check out a lead that we have; we have a lead that on September 12 the defendant was with Mary Jones in Oshkosh; we are going to send an investigator to go to see Mary Jones and find out whether that is true--if the prosecutor had to say: By the way, defense counsel, on October 3 we are going to send an investigator to meet Mary Jones in Oshkosh, that would prejudice the State's case because the defendant could pick up the phone and call Mary Jones and tell Mary Jones to leave town. It is not reasonable. What we did in the law not long ago, we said an indigent should have the same rights. But an indigent does not have any money. The only reason a poor guy's lawyer, the one that is appointed by the court, goes to the judge is because he does not have the money. Otherwise, he would not have to go to the judge. All he would have to do is say: OK, I am hiring a guy to go check this out. But now he is able to go to the judge. The reason he goes to the judge is that the judge is the guy who dispenses the money. The judge is the guy to say: OK, I will give you the money to hire that guy. You proved to me you need it. I will give you the money. Now, what my friends do here--and I understand their motivation; I think it is pure--is they say, wait a minute now. That is costing money, and should not the prosecutor, the State, have to be in that room when the defense attorney is in that room saying: Judge, I have no money, but I wish to hire an investigator to check this out. They say that the State prosecutor should be able to be in that room while that is being done. Well, they would not say that if it were a civil case. You would not in a civil case say, by the way, you ought to tell the other side that you are about to hire two people to go investigate a witness who says they saw your client walking around perfectly healthy when they claim to have a bad back. They say, well, you would not have to telegraph that. Just because somebody is poor, why should they have to give away their case in front of the prosecutor? And, by the way, to put it another way, how is the State hurt by this? The State is not hurt in any way by this. There is a Federal judge sitting there deciding whether or not there is a legitimate case made to need this investigator or to need this additional resource. And so what my amendment does is it strikes another provision in the underlying counterterrorism bill, the Hatch bill. It strikes the part that says that before a poor man's appointed counsel can ask a judge a question, he has to have the prosecutor in the room with him while he asks. Now, my good friend from Pennsylvania, who is, along with the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, one of the best trial lawyers in this place, and their previous records demonstrate that, says basically: Joe, do not worry about that because our legislation says-- and I will read it--``No ex parte proceeding, communication or request may be considered pursuant to this section unless a proper showing is made concerning the need for confidentiality.'' I understand what they intend by that. What they intend by that is to solve the problem I have just raised, but under the law the use of the phrase ``proper showing'' means that in front of the prosecutor you are going to have to say: This is why I need this money, judge, to hire this investigator. The effect of that is in making your proper showing you have to make it in front of the prosecutor. You have now given away the very thing you wanted to avoid when you asked for the closed hearing. This closed meeting with the judge has nothing to do with the facts of the case, nothing to do with the outcome of the case, nothing to do with the evidence that can or cannot be submitted in the case, nothing to do with the substance of the case. It has to do with the resources made available to a court-appointed lawyer. He may go in and say: Judge, you have not given me enough money to be able to send out the following 20 questions to prospective witnesses. I want that money. Can you give me that money to send out those letters? Or to provide transportation to get a witness. Remember Rosa, that woman in the O.J. trial who was going to Mexico? Well, it may be a situation where he said: Look, I have an indigent witness who cannot get here. I do not have the money to get him here. Can you give us the money to get him here? The judge may say: No, I will not give you the money. I do not think it is essential for your case. But if the judge thinks it is essential, he can say: OK, you are authorized to buy a ticket to send that person here. But what you do not want to do is to necessarily have to tell that to the prosecution at this point because it may be a witness you turn out not using. Anyway, that is the crux of this thing, and although the intention to correct my concern in the underlying remaining amendment is the law says that ``upon a proper showing of the need for confidentiality'' you can have this secret hearing, or this closed hearing, it does not get it done because ``proper showing,'' we believe, is essentially a term of art in the law. You have to make your case before the other person. Now, the last point I will make--and this is, I think, an appropriate point to make--is that the mere fact they put this in here evidences the fact they know I am right. The mere fact they acknowledge that there are circumstances under which confidentiality is appropriate makes my case. Think about that now. If they thought everything I am saying here makes no sense, that it is not a legitimate point to raise, why would they [[Page S7819]] provide for any circumstance under which there could be a closed hearing in which only the judge and only the defense counsel were present? They acknowledge by implication. They try to correct it by saying ``proper showing.'' I spent, with my staff, 20 minutes trying to come up with some other phrase that would get it done. But the truth of the matter is, it is real simple. It is human nature. If you have the prosecutor and the defense lawyer there and the judge, where the Presiding Officer is, and I have to make my case to you because you are not going to automatically grant what I request, you want to know why I want it. So you have to ask me, ``Joe, why do you want it?'' And in order for me to convince you to give me the resources, I have to say to you in front of the other guy, ``Well, I want it, Judge, because I think this witness is going to show that the witnesses for the prosecution are lying.'' Bingo, out of the bag. Now, if I could say to you, ``Judge, I can't say in front of the prosecutor here. Could you ask the prosecutor to step out of the room and I will tell you?'' If you could say that, then that will get it done. I do not mind the prosecutor being in there as long as when it comes to me to make my case as to why I need the resources that the prosecutor is not there. So I toyed with the idea of changing the law to say, ``No ex parte proceedings, communication, or request may be considered pursuant to this section unless a request is made concerning the need for confidentiality.'' A request is made--a request--not a showing, because when you move from request to showing, you are required to lay your cards on the table. ``The very cards I have to show you, Your Honor, in order to get you to allow me the money,'' I have to do it in front of those folks. We do not ask that for a defendant who can afford a lawyer. We do not ask that for a prosecutor. We only ask that for somebody who is poor, and that is a double standard. That is a double standard. To put it another way, Mr. President, if we wanted to make it even for everybody, we should require the privately paid defense lawyer to have to tell the prosecutor every single investigator he or she hires and why they hired them, and we should have to tell the prosecutor they have to tell the defense lawyer every single thing their investigator is doing before they do it. That would be fair. Now everybody is on the same playing field. Now poor folks are treated just like wealthy folks. Prosecutors are treated just like defendants. That would be fair. But what do we have here? We have a situation where I am poor, he is wealthy, and she is a prosecutor. She does not have to tell me anything about what she is investigating as a prosecutor. He does not have to tell her anything about what he is investigating as a defendant, he can afford it. But I have to tell everybody. It is not fair; not fair. That is what I am trying to correct. The underlying statute is 848. My amendment strikes all of their reference to that statute. I would be willing to do it by just substituting the word ``request'' for ``a proper showing'' in their language, but I do not think they are willing to accept that. So I am willing, when it is the appropriate time for my colleague to respond, if he wishes to, or move to table this--the bottom line, Mr. President, is I just think this is about fairness. Why should an indigent defendant have to tell the prosecutor all that he is investigating? You say, ``They don't have to under the law.'' They do practically, Mr. President, because they do not have the resources to hire these folks to do the investigation. Therefore, they have to ask for that. In order to get the judge to give them those resources, they have to tell him why they want those resources; thereby, the effect is they have to tell them. They should not have to do that. Wealthy defendants do not have to do it. Prosecutors do not have to do it. Poor people should not have to do it. I yield the floor and thank my colleague. Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN. President, I would like to withdraw amendment 1226. I hate numbers and acronyms. But that is what I wish to withdraw. I send a new amendment to the desk, the number of which I have not the slightest idea.

Mr. BIDEN. I am submitting a new amendment. Amendment No. 1226 withdrawn

Mr. BIDEN. That is correct. Mr. President, if there is one thing I have learned after years, it is that it is very difficult to listen to staff and the Presiding Officer at the same time. I apologize. I should have been listening to the Presiding Officer. Would he mind repeating his question to me?

Mr. BIDEN. That is correct.

Mr. BIDEN. No, the Senator is modifying, actually, it is a whole new amendment. I am attempting to modify the underlying bill. Mr. President, I want to make clear. I may have done something inadvertently here. I do not mean to modify, I am sending the amendment to the desk, the purpose of which is to amend the Hatch amendment. We need a vote on it. I am not seeking unanimous consent for that.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Utah. As usual, he is always reasonable. The effect of what the Senator has just done is to modify the underlying bill that he introduced, the Hatch amendment, the Hatch bill, the Hatch-Dole bill. It maintains in capital cases the requirement that counsel be appointed at trial and in a habeas proceeding, and it makes discretionary the appointment of counsel at those stages in noncapital cases. That leaves one part of my original amendment that still needs to be resolved. We can speak to it in a very short order. There was a third section of the existing bill that was attempted to be amended by my amendment. I send that modification of my amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BIDEN. It is the Herrera case.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BIDEN. I urge adoption of the modification.

Mr. BIDEN. I would say we may not use all 90 minutes, but since it is the last amendment, I would prefer to have that cushion.

Mr. BIDEN. That is correct.

Mr. BIDEN. Maybe we can let him do that while we nail this down.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I think the Senator from Wisconsin wishes to speak on the issue.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the answer is yes. The reason I have counseled my friend from Michigan not to go yet is that the key staff people who know this issue very well, who will also want to be available to Senator Hatch as well as to me, are the very people negotiating this other item which is very close. Apparently, we are now ready to go. We will be able to move right away to Senator Levin. We may be able to dispose of this right now. Apparently, we have reached our agreement.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, in response to my colleague, he is coming awfully close to what I intend. If it is read the way in which the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania reads it, which is that if there is a showing for the need for confidentiality, then the judge can meet only with the defense counsel and make his or her judgment. That, quite frankly, gets a lot closer to what I intend. As the Senator feels, as a matter of principle, that we should err on the side of not having ex parte proceedings, I must acknowledge in these days, I err on the side of allowing indigent defense counsel to have the maximum flexibility with the judge. While the staff is correcting the other portions of this, I would like to seek the counsel of my counsel, and determine whether or not it is still necessary to proceed with the last portion of this amendment. I see the distinguished leader is on the floor. He always comes when he worries things are slowing down. I can assure the Senator they are not slowing down, they are moving along fast. We will get this done before the time would have been used had a rollcall vote been called. We are very close. I think that can happen. So I do not want the Senator to get upset. We have Senator Levin waiting in the wings to go with his amendment.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, with the consent of my colleague--and I failed to do this earlier--I would send a modification of my amendment, a draft error correction in my amendment to the desk. Mr. President, I will withhold. Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BIDEN. All right.

Mr. BIDEN. On page 125 of the Senator's bill, section 608, ``Technical Amendments,'' it says ``Section 408(c) of the Controlled Substance Act is amended in paragraph 34(a) by striking `shall' and inserting `may'.'' When you go and look at that paragraph in the law, it says, paragraph 4(a) says ``notwithstanding any other provision of the law to the contrary, in every criminal action in which the defendant is charged with a crime,'' and then it goes on to say that the defendant, the present law says, ``The defendant shall be entitled to the appointment of one or more attorneys and'' et cetera. But the way it is changed in your law, it says that ``Notwithstanding any other provision of the law to the contrary, every criminal action in which a defendant is charged with a crime the defendant may be entitled.'' You strike the word ``shall'' and insert ``may.''

Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield for a very brief question?

Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will yield for 10 seconds, I think he is right, Mr. President, but I do not know why we should pass an unconstitutional statute, because this is clearly unconstitutional the way it is written.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, in 1988, we passed a bill which I had authored with several others called the Death Penalty for Drug Kingpins Act. It was the first constitutional Federal death penalty to go on the books after 1972 when the Supreme Court invalidated the death penalty. I helped write that bill, much to the dismay of many of my liberal friends who could not understand why I was writing such a bill. It was a bill strongly promoted by President Bush, and it passed by a lopsided vote of 65 to 29, with only six Republicans voting against the bill. When we passed that bill, we recognized that if the Federal Government was going to put a person to death, we better get it right. We better have the right guy and we better have had a fair trial, and the defendant better have had his or her day in court. As part of the law, we said that the capital defendant--the defendant accused of a crime which carried with it the death penalty--in that case the person should have a lawyer. Kind of axiomatic. They should have a lawyer if they are going to go to trial, a trial in which, if that person is found guilty, they will be put to death. That, of course, is also what the sixth amendment of the Constitution of the United States says. It explicitly says that ``In all criminal proceedings the accused shall have the assistance of counsel for his defense.'' Remember Clarence Earl Gideon? The case was Gideon versus Wainwright. The Supreme Court held that Mr. Gideon, accused of a crime, could not receive a fair trial absent the right to a lawyer. In that case, the court said, ``The sixth amendment stands as a constant admonition that if the constitutional safeguards it provides be lost, justice will not be done. The right of one charged with a crime to counsel may not be deemed fundamental and essential to fair trials in some countries, but it is in ours.'' Also, in the 1988 drug bill we said that prisoners, State or Federal, who are looking the death penalty in the eye should have a lawyer for their Federal habeas corpus appeals. Again, we recognize that if the Federal Government is going to put its stamp of approval on a man's execution, he should at least have a lawyer. But this Republican bill does something I am not sure they intended to do, but they did. This Republican bill changes all of that. Astonishingly, it changes all of that. In a section entitled ``technical amendments''--we should all keep our eyes open when someone says ``this is just a technical amendment''--in a section entitled ``technical amendments,'' this bill repeals the right to counsel in Federal capital cases. It says that the right to counsel is no right at all but a matter of discretion for the judge. Let me refer you back to Gideon versus Wainwright, that famous last sentence which says, ``The right of one charged with a crime to counsel may not be deemed fundamental and essential to fair trials in some countries, but it is in ours.'' It does not say it is discretionary in ours. It does not say maybe it is all right in ours. It does not say it is OK sometimes in ours. It says, ``it is in ours.'' Astonishingly, this little technical amendment says the right to counsel is a matter of discretion for the judge to decide. I do not know what my colleagues were thinking of when they wrote this. But what this seems to be saying is this: We do not care what the Constitution says. We do not care what the Supreme Court says. We think it is OK to deny a person who faces the Federal death penalty--and there are now over 60 on the books--we think it is OK to deny that person the assistance of counsel at his trial. I submit this proposition is as unthinkable as it is unconstitutional. And we should have nothing to do with it. The Republican bill also repeals the right we created in 1968 to a lawyer for Federal habeas corpus appeal. This bill says that there should be no right to a lawyer, that it should instead be a matter of discretion for every individual case. What is more, the Republican proposal is taking away this right at the very same time it is changing the rules of the game on habeas corpus, and placing new and sweeping restrictions on the right of habeas corpus itself. We want to change habeas corpus but they are making sweeping changes in the rules of the game. And in addition saying, and by the way, while we are at it we are going to go back and deny you your right to counsel when you are filing such a petition. And one more thing, we are going to deny you the automatic right to a lawyer at your trial, before you are convicted. It reminds me of that line that is often used, and I will paraphrase, ``hanging first, trial later.'' What are we into here? I agree we should cut down the delay and abuse of the Federal habeas corpus and I have made a number of similar proposals over the years to impose strict time limits on when such petitions could be filed and also to limit the number that could be filed, essentially giving one bite out of the apple to drastically reduce the ability to have successive petitions unless there is some egregious action that is learned about after the petition is filed, the first petition. But I have always believed if we are going to speed up the process, which I wish to do, if we are going to narrow the avenues of habeas corpus, which I wish to do, we should at least make sure that the petitioner has a lawyer. That is what we said in 1988 and there has been no serious question raised about our wisdom in passing that law since then. Two years ago I entered into painstaking extensive negotiations with the Nation's district attorneys and the attorneys general of the United States over habeas corpus reform. We negotiated for months. We logged hundreds of hours, argued over scores of serious issues before we came up with a lengthy and comprehensive compromise--which, I might say and I probably should not, my staff will not like this, which the liberal press killed. The liberal press told us this was somehow a terrible thing to do. I kept saying we better do this or they are going to take it all away. But I hope everybody is listening who helped kill that compromise. But not once in all our discussions with the Nation's prosecutors, I was not talking with the public defenders. I was not talking with the defense bar. I was talking with the Nation's prosecutors, the DA's back home, the State's attorneys general back home. Not one time in our talks did the prosecutors propose the repeal of the 1988 right to a lawyer in a habeas corpus petition. Not once did they argue that the right to counsel in habeas corpus should be discretionary. Not once did they suggest that the right to counsel at a trial should be denied. As a matter of fact, what they constantly said was that the best way to shorten the appeals, the best way to cut down on the abuse, was to do it right the first time. They argued--not me--they, the prosecutors, Republican and Democrat--they said if you want to get this thing on track make sure there is a competent lawyer representing these people during this stage of the proceeding. Because they pointed out that most of the habeas corpus petitions that are granted, and the Federal courts grant many, most of the ones that are granted are granted because the court concludes that the defendant did not have adequate counsel, they were denied their right to know what a fair trial should be. So here you had the prosecutor--not the defense bar--saying, ``Make sure that the defendant has legal counsel and then give him one bite out of the apple.'' These are experienced people. These are the people who try these cases. These are the people who respond to these habeas corpus petitions. I might say to those who are listening, I have to keep reminding people-- [[Page S7813]] habeas corpus. If a habeas corpus petition is granted it does not mean anyone goes free. The man or woman still stays behind bars. All it says is they get a new trial. This is not a petition for innocence that can be decided in terms of releasing someone. This merely says that a prisoner behind bars slips a paper between the bars and says: Send this to the judge, ask him to take a look at it because I do not think I got a fair trial. That is what it is. And here we had for months of negotiations-- months--worked out a compromise, and these hard-nosed prosecutors in our home States said make sure they have counsel. That is the best insurance for the public at large that we will not be wasting their money and their time. Just last year the U.S. Supreme Court, which for the most part is no friend of the Federal habeas petitioner, recognized the importance of having a lawyer. In the case of McFarland versus Scott, the Court said: Quality legal representation is necessary in capital habeas corpus proceedings in light of the seriousness of the possible penalty and the unique and complex nature of the litigation. To say that habeas litigation is unique and complex is an understatement. Habeas petitions must meet tightened pleading requirements. They must comply with the Supreme Court's intricate doctrines on procedural default and waiver. Federal courts can summarily dismiss any petition that appears legally insufficient on its face. And they can deny stay of execution where petitioner fails to raise a substantial Federal claim. But this provision tells these indigent defendants who have just been sentenced to death that they have no right to the help of a lawyer, that they might have to navigate the arcane, complicated and hazardous sea of the Supreme Court jurisprudence and statutory rules by themselves. Quite apart from what I believe is the fundamental unfairness of this proposition, I also think at a practical level it will waste a lot of time and a lot of money to deny a lawyer at this point. First, ask any experienced lawyer or prosecutor. Almost all would rather have a competent adversary who can adequately frame and present issues over an incompetent one who does not have the first clue about how to present his arguments. Most experienced lawyers would tell you that having someone who has no training on the other side only slows things down because the trained lawyer and the judge end up doing a lot of extra work just to figure out what the untrained lawyer is trying to say and to make sure reversible error is not created. What is more, under the Republican proposal, valuable resources will be squandered in litigation at the outset over whether counsel should or should not be appointed. If the judge ends up appointing counsel, all that time and money will have been wasted, and if the judge does not appoint counsel, the indigent death row inmate will be left to find his own way through some of the most complicated legal doctrines imaginable. This just does not make sense, in my view, as a practical matter or as a matter of principle. We should not in our haste to hurry up executions lose sight of our commitment to constitutional values. We should not endorse proposals that increase the chance that, where execution is imminent, an innocent person be executed. We should not, I believe, sacrifice certainty in the name of speed, or fairness in the name of vengeance. Most importantly, Mr. President, I really believe that everyone should understand we are not talking about changing any of the ways in which we deal with habeas corpus in this amendment. We are not talking about whether the Biden approach of only one petition or their approach of only one petition is the best one. We are not talking about whether we are going to cut the delay by a year or a month or a day. What we are talking about is a fundamental principle, one that, as it relates to the trial, has been established since Gideon versus Wainwright, and in many instances before that, and one as it relates to Federal habeas corpus that was established in 1988. I ask my friend from Utah, because it may have been an oversight, whether he really intended to eliminate the right to counsel at trial as well as the right to counsel in a habeas corpus petition. So I sincerely hope my colleagues will take a close look at this. This does not have to do with speeding up the process; this has to do with the fundamental fairness. Are we going to stick with constitutional principle established several decades ago in this country saying you are entitled to a lawyer at a trial and, if you cannot afford one, the court will appoint one as a matter of right and you are entitled to a lawyer at the Federal level when you file a habeas corpus petition? The practical implication of all that is that most prosecutors will tell you that will speed the process up, not slow the process down. I yield the floor. Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.