Court rules for inmate who wants DNA testing (SCOTUS, 6-3)

[usregimechange]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Monday gave a glimmer of hope to a death row inmate in Texas who wants to test crime-scene evidence that he says may show he is innocent.

The court's narrow, 6-3 ruling means that Hank Skinner, who was about an hour away from execution when the Supreme Court intervened last year, will not be put to death soon while his legal case continues...

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, said prison inmates may use a federal civil rights law to seek DNA testing that was not performed before their conviction. Lower federal courts had dismissed Skinner's claims at an early stage, although other federal judges have allowed similar lawsuits to go forward in other parts of the country.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SUPREME_COURT_TEXAS_EXECUTION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


GINSBURG, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and SCALIA, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which KENNEDY and ALITO, JJ., joined.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-9000.pdf


Not that long after the release of:

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjEwNzUzNTk0Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDE1MTk1Mw@@._V1._SY317_CR0,0,214,317_.jpg

[ceile]

1. Good news! n/t

[sadbear]

2. It's a good thing Mr. Skinner is white

This precedent would not have been set for a black man.

[speltwon]

3. oh please.

Fwiw, I find the dissent list interesting. Kennedy siding with Thomas. Scalia siding with Ginsburg. This upsets the "Thomas always votes with Scalia" meme, as well as the left/right court meme, etc. And if you want to go the racial angle, the black justice voted against this. Did he do it because the defendant is white? I just believe that kind of baseless conjecture is useless. Also, there have been two recent decisions that have been decidedly FOR the individual and against the corporate, upsetting the "SCOTUS ALWAYS SIDES with corporations against the individual meme".

Ultimately, this case is a test of process analysis vs. results analysis.

[LiberalFighter]

4. Excerpts

Some of this evidence— including bloody palm prints in the room where one victim was killed—implicated Skinner, but “fingerprints on a bag containing one of the knives” did not.

In preparation for trial, the State tested some of the physical evidence, but left untested several items, including knives found on the premises, an axe handle, vaginal swabs, finger-nail clippings, and certain hair samples.


Skinner’s trial counsel, although aware that biological evidenceremained untested, did not request further testing. Postconviction, Skinner sought DNA testing of vaginal swabs and finger nail clippings taken from Busby, blood and hairs on a jacket found next to Busby’s body, and biological material on knives and a dish towel recovered atthe crime scene.

How does an attorney not know that material wasn't tested?????

[varkam]

6. It seems like he knew that some material wasn't tested, but realize that DNA is a double-edged...

sword. As a defense attorney, you might not always want to test available DNA evidence. For example, let's say that the perpetrator left some of his blood at the scene and for whatever reason, the state doesn't test it. Your client tells you he's innocent, but he's got no alibi. If you test that blood and it's his, that's going to make your job of defending him a hell of a lot more difficult.

eta: and to be fair, that's giving the attorney maybe more credit than he/she deserves. They may have also just been a bad / overworked lawyer.

[unblock]

5. the real questions is, if the dna evidence exonerates him, will THAT stop the execution?

scalia, for instance, believes that even clear-cut evidence of innocence is not enough to overturn a "fair trial".

i presume what mattered to scalia in this case was that the trial wasn't "fair" because the defense attorney screwed up by not asking for the dna tests, although scalia has previously deemed many a trial "fair" despite all manner of defense attorney errors.

[varkam]

7. Well to, erm, be fair....

a fair trial is not a perfect trial, and the constitution doesn't guarantee a perfect trial. I will say, though, that the current standard for winning an ineffective assistance of counsel claim is set too high. I've seem some god-awful attorneys basically do everything but sleep through trial (e.g. gave no opening statements, asked only a couple perfunctory cross-examination questions of government witnesses) and still be found to have provided the constitutionally-mandated level of representation. It's pretty sad.

[unblock]

8. if you're a constitutional literalist, i suppose you've got an argument.

the constitution only guarantees due process, and a fair a speedy trial, and so on.

the constitution doesn't literally prevent ridiculous laws or standards, possibly resulting in executions, provided that the trial is "fair" and you've been given "due process".


the question becomes, has a person been given due process if an appelate court refuses to overturn a conviction when faced with incontrovertable evidence of innocence? what if a trial was "fair" and resulted in a conviction, but after the trial, the real killer confesses and provides proof (dna, etc.) of his own guilt? yes, arguably, the trial was "fair" but arrived at an incorrect conclusion, but is the entire process ("due process" includes appeals) "fair" in any meaningful way if the conviction is permitted to stand in the face of such clear evidence of innocence?

lest we lose perspective, note that virtually ALL governments do things "by the book". whether democratic or dictatorial, nearly all of them have laws and decrees and otherwise legally sanctioned rules. when judging other countries, we don't, for the most part, look simply to whether or not they stick to their process and shrug our shoulders and say, hey, i guess it's fine for them to stone women in those countries for not wearing a veil because they have a law about that. the woman got due process so it's ok to stone her? hardly. we mostly look to the ridiculousness of the results when judging other countries and regimes.

i would say that in this country, if a judge can sit idly by while a proven innocent is executed, then we have a ridiculous process and it needs to be fixed. to my mind, that judge is simply committing cold-blooded murder.

[varkam]

9. I'm certainly no literalist.

But that's the law as it stands. Believe me, I agree with a lot of what you have to say. I've worked on post-conviction cases and there's a tangled web of procedural hurdles that one has to clear in order to get to the next level. To say that the deck is stacked against someone who's innocent and incarcerated is putting it mildly. On the other hand, the response is usually that setting the bar too low would result in a criminal justice system that would have no teeth because folks could always get let out.

Even still, the old saw comes to mind that it is better to let ten guilty men go free than for one innocent man to be condemned. That may be the ideal, but it's certainly not how our justice system is calibrated.

[DCKit]

10. Quite the unexpected split. But hey, good news, regardless - for a change. nt