Posted on
October 26, 2008 in
That the following is a question that a court can even ask, shows that the system is seriously broken:
Whether Davis can still be executed if he can establish innocence under the second standard [clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable fact finder would have found him guilty] but cannot satisfy his burden under the first, due-diligence question.
(Via A Public Defender.)
I look forward to the government’s explanation of why it should be allowed to execute someone who is clearly innocent because his lawyers should have found the evidence of his innocence in the first place.
Mark,
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay this weekend to allow time for Mr. Davis’ attorneys to file a new habeas writ.
Paul B. Kennedy
I had an email about this the other day from Amnesty International, what is the world comming to.
Regards John Gibson
In Herrera v. Collins, before the Court became even more conservative, five Supreme Court Justices believed it would not violate the Constitution for a State to execute a factually innocent person.
And then the Republican Congress enacted the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which restricted persons from applying more than once for habeas relief unless they could show that they were innocent AND that a constitutional violation occurred which, in its absence, would have demonstrated their innocence. Being innocent, alone, wasn’t enough.
So, yeah, we’re in pretty bad shape.
“The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay this weekend to allow time for Mr. Davis’ attorneys to file a new habeas writ.”
So what exactly did you think Mark was posting about? Except you got the details wrong. The writ was filed on Wednesday, the stay was granted on Friday, and the purpose of the stay was to brief the issue of due diligence.
I’m trying to remember the case where Brennan, writing for a difficult-to-hold majority, decided something to the effect of a guy surrounded by cops with drawn guns would have thought himself free to leave, to get the result that he wanted.
I think the answer would be something similar: if the SCOTUS decided that it was necessary that a factually innocent person be executed, they’d decide that there was insufficient evidence that he was factually innocent, thereby kinda sorta avoiding the problem.