Senator Dole excoriated President Clinton's two Supreme Court appointees, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, as willing to use "technicalities" to overturn death sentences.

The crackdowns are drawing pointed attacks from advocates for the poor, who maintain that officials are so bent on reducing spending that they are using technicalities to shove people off welfare.

The Innocence Project does not use legal technicalities to challenge convictions; the Project accepts only cases in which newly discovered scientific evidence can potentially prove that a convicted person is factually innocent.

Last year Judge Nicandro Martinez Lopez used legal technicalities to overturn two indictments against Adan Amezcua, whose extradition is being sought by the United States.

Mayor Flynn, defending the police, criticized lawyers who defend suspected drug dealers as out to "make a quick buck" and using "technicalities" to win their clients' freedom.

But the Health Research Group said the commission was using technicalities to avoid the issue and accepting industry definitions of asbestos that exclude suspect particles found in some samples.

Asked if he thought that the administration was using technicalities to kill the contract and end a political embarrassment, Mr. Bystryk said, "That is our assumption."

And, in the second episode, there is the father of a murdered 8-year-old boy who finds the killer using legal technicalities to win a plea bargain.

Landlords cite the case as a particularly egregious example of officials using technicalities to thwart redemption.

And profitable, too, though he was sometimes difficult to understand because now and then he used scientific technicalities which were above the reach of some of us.