The court was saying that in courts whose scope is to hear constitutional issues, listening to the facts of a case and deciding if the claimant is innocent is not appropriate. I don’t see how this equates to saying that it is OK to kill an innocent person. they aren’t saying that. Thay are saying “you’ve got the wrong venue pal, we only hear constitutional issues and you haven’t met the burden to reach that point.”
Furthermore, Herrera’s case stunk. He comes up with a few pieces of hearsay 8 years ex post facto, all of which hints that his DEAD brother did it. It is not like he had exculpatory DNA evidence.
Could you see what would happen if courts who hear cases on due process had to re-open every case where the convict alleged he was innocent?
To be precise (which is the essence of law ;)) the court did not state that the execution would be unconstitutional, it presented that as a hypothesis (assuming that…)
I am just wandering back here after being a way for a few days, so pardon if I do not read all the threads, and thus repeat something. But, some observations:
Regarding Bush: I am BY FAR not a Bush fan, yet I don’t think this is something that reflects too much on him. He was merely acting on what he thought was a good system. If this does end up being a nail in his coffin, I will not be displeased, but I don’t think it really is.
Regarding exculpatory evidence: One of the things thatscare me about many DAs is that is seems, once they get a conviction, that they could not care less if the convicted is innocent. I have heard some DAs say, to the effect,itdid not matter to them if the convicted was innocent in reality, so long as a jury convicted them, they were guilty in the eyes of the law, exculpatory evidence or not. THATis a scary perspective to me.
Mr.Zambezi, what the court is also saying is: if you come to the supreme court for an appeal in a death penalty case with proof of innocence, and the state refuses to take your proof into consideration, we are not forced to prevent your execution either (with the caveat as expressed above that in case of a lack of other recourse they might grant federal habeas status.) The court did not rule that it is unconstitutional to execute an innocent person (but they did not rule that it is constitutional either, they more or less left the issue up in the air.) At least that’s the way I understand the decision from the analyses of the decision that I’ve read.
Sounds to me like they are saying that if there is a “truly persuasive” demonstration of innocence, then the execution would be unconstitutional. I don’t see any other way to read this other than “it is unconstitutional to execute someone who can truly prove his innocence.”
I do see where the anti-death folks get angry. The decision does seem to say that if the state has a 35 second time period after teh trial to enter new evidence, well that is their own damn business, so screw you Mr.Convict.
I am generally in favor of the death penalty but can’t see why they have such short periods to bring evidence. Perhaps they could leave the time period open but limit the number of times new evidence was brought up.
>> The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder. -Justice Harry Blackmun, Herrera v. Collins, 1993
>> Hey look even the supreme court justices call it murder
No they don’t. That quote supports what I said. Justice Harry does not say the death penalty is murder, he says if it is not done with adequate guarantees it would come close to murder (even in that case he would not call it murder).
I think this discussion is muddied because two separate issues are being mixed. One is the administration of justice and of the death penalty in particular. What is good process etc.
That is a separate issue from whether the death penalty is ethical, useful, etc. I think it is better to keep these two issues separate.
First, in my opinion, time limits on habeas corpus appeals flies in the face of the concept of human rights. If an accused person can uncover compelling evidence of their innocence, they should be able to present it at any time. “Time limits” on innocence is absurd.
Second, I think making the case that murder is not murder if the killing is “sanctioned”, is semantics. “The State” is us.
Third, what is the purpose of capital punishment, if not deterrence? It certainly can’t be for rehabilitative purposes. I submit that, even if the system were infallible, capital punishment as a deterrent simply does not work.
I’d like to get into more depth here, but I’ve got to go to work.
>> making the case that murder is not murder if the killing is “sanctioned”, is semantics. “The State” is us.
Yup. The law defines murder as unlawful act and punishes it accordingly (sometimes with the death penalty). It does not include in the definition of murder a killing that is legal (self-defense, etc). Yes, it is semantics but the law gets to say what is murder, you don’t. If you want to outlaw the death penalty that is fine but, in the meanwhile, it does not fall into the legal definition of murder.
The law also defines theft and robbery as unlawful acts and punishes them. The legal taking of property is not theft. When they come to repossess your car they are not stealing it. When they make you pay a fine or a tax they are not stealing, it is not called theft. Yup, it is a matter of semantics. That is how the law defines it.
Rape is defined as not being consensual. You cannot have consensual rape not withstanding some feminazis. Semantics? Yup. You can call the price of gas robbery but that does not make it such. You can call the death penalty murder but the law defines murder as something else. Semantics? Yup. Some of those who opposed the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia called it genocide but does that make it genocide? PETA can call killing a cow murder if they like. The problem with talking like that is that rather than having an intelligent exchange about the substance of the issue, you are obscuring the issue for the sake of cheap rhetoric in an effort to make the other side look bad. With an intelligent listener you immediately lose a lot of points.
I think that the anti-death penalty side has made it’s case that we feel that the death penalty is murder and can be called such. Sailor and others have made it clear that they will in no way accept that. I think that this is such a minor issue that we can agree to disagree. From now on in this debate I will not refer to the Death Penalty in the United States as murder. I will refer to it as simple killing. Do I think of it as murder? Yes. Is there any point in continuing the debate on wheter we should call it murder or not? No.
Sailor: well thought, well elucidated, and well…you rock.
[this endorsement only applies to the last two posts of sailor in this thread. No other warantee expressly or implicitly applies. This offer good through 6//16/00 only. this coupon has no cash value and applies only in those states where permitted.]
You still are interpreting *Herrera * incorrectly. Your new quotation from the Supremes actually works against you.
Read the two quotations together. The first says that habeus relief is a procedural matter, that is, condemned prisoners can get relief from a federal court if he/she can show that the process by which the state court condemned the prisoner was defective. Procedure, in legal terms, covers a lot - possible examples include evidence that a juror was coerced/browbeaten into voting for the death penalty, the prosecutor’s failure to disclose exculpatory evidence, etc. What procedure, and thus habeus relief does ** not ** cover, as the Supremes say, is the substance of the case, i.e., the evidence. Therefore, a condemned prisoner cannot get relief from the federal courts by presenting new evidence of innocence.
The second quotation, which begins “even assuming”, does not say what you think it says. What it says is that even if what the Supremes had just finished writing was wrong and a federal court could look at new evidence, the “evidence” Herrera wanted to present was insufficient to call into doubt his conviction.
Mr. Z., you’re tying yourself down on a bad point. The rationale behind the Herrera decision, as correctly interpreted, is something that you can probably believe in, and in fact, strongly advocate. (In fact, *Herrera * is most likely a legally correct and valid determination).
The *Herrera * rationale is as follows:
Under our federal system of government, it is the state’s obligation to weigh the guilt or innocence of suspects;
The federal courts have a constitutional obligation to make sure that the state’s process for determining guilt or innocence complies with the U.S. constitution, particularly, the 6th and 14th Amendments - “due process of law” and the like;
However, the federal courts are not smarter than the state ones – they have neither the competence nor the authority to tell state courts that their decision was wrong, so long as the state court used the proper procedure in reaching that decision.
So, to sum up, -
Under * Herrera * federal courts cannot address new evidence of innocence, as evidence is not procedural in nature;
This may or may not be a bad thing. That’s for you to make the argument, Mr. Z. Just make the argument on the correct bases of law.
The posters asserting that * Herrera * says you can execute an innocent man are incorrect as well. What * Herrera * actually says is that federal courts cannot address that issue.
A semantic difference, some may argue, but a legally important one.
I am aware that you are not advocating the death penalty. My response was not in specific response to you, it was more a general response. I never stated in that post that you are pro-death penalty. I was simply clarifying the point that, to avoid a pointless debate, I will stop refering to it as murder.
My “semantics” comment was not intended to be inciteful, but rather insightful. Unfortunately, I was only on my first cup of coffee. My intended point was that the “sanctioners” of capital punishment are actually us.
You,rightfully,chose that comment to lambaste. But, how would you respond to my other two points: time limits on habeas appeals, and the deterrence efficacy of capital punishment?
My “semantics” comment was not intended to be inciteful, but rather insightful. Unfortunately, I was only on my first cup of coffee. My intended point was that the “sanctioners” of capital punishment are actually us.
You,rightfully,chose that comment to lambaste. But, how would you respond to my other two points: time limits on habeas appeals, and the deterrence efficacy of capital punishment?
Let me try to sum up how I see Herrera here. You legal types please correct me if I’m wrong.
A man is convicted of a brutal murder and given the death sentence. Exculpatory evidence - strong exculpatory evidence - surfaces after the time limit for introducing new evidence after the trial’s conclusion has expired. The state courts will not allow this evidence for the reason stated above.
The Supreme Court says, “We can’t do anything here; the judicial procedure was sound and we cannot provide relief.”
And the man is sent to death.
Have I misunderstood anything?
It seems to me that, while the Supreme Court has not expressly condoned the execution of innocent people, they’re not doing a whole hell of a lot to ensure that it doesn’t happen. Neither are the state courts, for that matter.
And therein lies the problem. The State Courts, especially in Texas, aren’t too concerned with Exculpatory evidence after the deadline. And the federal courts aren’t going to make the state courts intervene. So SOME people who COULD be innocent are executed. If that never happened, then I wouldn’t be concerned. But it does happen. Even ONCE is too many times.
The system is incredibly flawed, because Humans are not perfect. The system will NEVER be perfect, innocent people COULD be executed. So what’s the solution? Abolish the DP, replace it with life w/o parole. Innocent people will be given their entire lives to be proved innocent. Guilty people will no longer pose a threat to society. I don’t understand why this is a problem.
The “strong” exculpatory evidence statement is probably too strong. I haven’t seen the evidence, but the Supremes, as noted in Mr. Z’s second quotation from the opinion, did see it, and were dismissive.
What the Supremes were most concerned about in *Herrera * was * the finality of decisions. * In our common-law system, finality ( * res judicata *) is vital. Without it, we cannot look to earlier decisions by courts to determine whether our intended actions are legal or not. This would create a huge problem.
The fact that the Supremes were more interested in the integrity of the legal system than the life of a (potentially) innocent man, seems pretty callow. However, let me give you another example.
A lot of the people I know who are anti-DP are also pro-choice. For those people, do you realize why abortions are still legal in the U.S.? *Res judicata *. If you read the Supreme Court decision in * Casey *, it’s pretty clear that the majority of the Supremes wanted to overturn * Roe v. Wade *. However, a few of the Supremes (in particular, O’Connor), determined that the finality of decisions is more important that their belief that * Roe * was wrongly decided. So they voted against overturning * Roe *, and they were the swing votes.
“The law is an ass.” But it’s the best law we have.
The"strong" part is wrong. the evidence was not strong. I say it, the Supremes said it, you , who saw neither the evidence nor the trial say otherwise. Feel free to say so but his evidence was weak.
Sua I have no disagreement with what you said. I was arguing against oldscratch’s belief that herrera insinuated that innocent men could be killed. That is clearly NOT what the decision said.