| TROY DAVIS TO DIE, BY ONE VOTE | |
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| Topic Started: Apr 18 2009, 12:55 PM (916 Views) | |
| Quasimodo | Aug 19 2009, 11:37 PM Post #31 |
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http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/hearing-on-innocence-claim-ordered/ "On the power of a federal judge to rule in Davis’ favor at this stage, Scalia argued that the 1996 federal law limiting federal habeas review of state criminal convictions — the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) — barred any federal court from hearing Davis’ claim because there was no error at his trial that violated any prior Supreme Court decision. "Scalia wrote: “This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.” He conceded, though, that the Court has left the issue open. Stevens said that the District judge may have authority to act, perhaps finding that AEDPA’s limits do not apply to “original” habeas writs of the kind the Justices acted on on Monday, or do not apply to a habeas claim of “actual innocence.” In addition, Stevens said, there may be an argument that AEDPA’s habeas limits are unconstitutional if they barred court review of such a claim. Finally, Stevens said, it can be argued that it would be a federal constitutional violation to execute an innocent person. [Duh! I would think so...] |
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| Quasimodo | Aug 19 2009, 11:39 PM Post #32 |
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Justice Scalia's dissent can be found at : http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Scalia-opin-Davis.pdf "Transferring this case to a court that has no power togrant relief is strange enough. It becomes stranger still when one realizes that the allegedly new evidence we shunt off to be examined by the District Court has already been considered (and rejected) multiple times. Davis’s postconviction “actual-innocence” claim is not new. Most of the evidence on which it is based is almost a decade old. A State Supreme Court, a State Board of Pardons and Paroles, and a Federal Court of Appeals have all consid-ered the evidence Davis now presents and found it lacking. (I do not rely upon the similar conclusion of the Georgia trial court, since unlike the others that court relied sub-stantially upon Georgia evidentiary rules rather than the unpersuasiveness of the evidence Davis brought forward. See App. to Pet. for Writ of Habeas Corpus 57a–63a.) "When Davis sought clemency before the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, that tribunal stayed his executionand “spent more than a year studying and considering [his] case.” Brief in Opposition 14–15 (statement of Board of Pardons and Paroles). It “gave Davis’ attorneys anopportunity to present every witness they desired to sup-port their allegation that there is doubt as to Davis’ guilt”;it “heard each of these witnesses and questioned them closely.” Id., at 15. It “studied the voluminous trial tran-script, the police investigation report and the initial statements of the witnesses,” and “had certain physical evidence retested and Davis interviewed.” Ibid. “After an exhaustive review of all available information regarding the Troy Davis case and after considering all possible reasons for granting clemency, the Board . . . determined that clemency is not warranted.” Ibid. "After reviewing the record, the Eleventh Circuit came toa conclusion “wholly consonant with the repeated conclu-sions of the state courts and the State Board of Pardons and Paroles.” 565 F. 3d 810, 825 (2009). “When we view all of this evidence as a whole, we cannot honestly say that Davis can establish by clear and convincing evidence thata jury would not have found him guilty of Officer MacPhail’s murder.” Id., at 826. Today, without explanation and without any meaningfulguidance, this Court sends the District Court for theSouthern District of Georgia on a fool’s errand. That court is directed to consider evidence of actual innocence which has been reviewed and rejected at least three times, and which, even if adequate to persuade the District Court,cannot (as far as anyone knows) form the basis for any relief. I truly do not see how the District Court can dis-cern what is expected of it. If this Court thinks it possible that capital convictions obtained in full compliance withlaw can never be final, but are always subject to being set aside by federal courts for the reason of “actual innocence,” it should set this case on our own docket so that we can (ifnecessary) resolve that question. Sending it to a districtcourt that “might” be authorized to provide relief, but then again “might” be reversed if it did so, is not a sensible way to proceed." Edited by Quasimodo, Aug 19 2009, 11:42 PM.
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| Quasimodo | Aug 20 2009, 11:18 AM Post #33 |
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Here is a part of a comment by a poster at DIW which adds another wrinkle to the argument (not that I necessarily agree with it) : "So you ask, What if the judicial system fails in the trial and appeals processes to free an actually innocent person? The answer is in the executive branch: The chief executive has the right to grant pardons and commutations. He can grant pardons for either actual innocence or for other reasons where he finds the conviction was unjust. He can grant commutations where he believes the conviction was just but the sentence imposed was unjust. That's why we have executive branch boards of "Pardons and Paroles". ". . . Moreover, I think these claims are better made in the executive branch proceedings because the rules of evidence in the judicial branch are much more strict and so the full truth of the case can be missed more easily by a court than it would be by an executive board with looser rules about evidence. " |
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| Sydney Carton | Aug 20 2009, 05:28 PM Post #34 |
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I come in here late today and there are smoking pistols laid out on two other boards awaiting my attention. For the time being Scalia who certainly ought to have read his sources more carefully (and he rarely slips up this way) repeats the assertions contained in the 2-1 decision from the Federal Appeals decision,a decision which the dissenting Justice stated was in itself unconstitutional.I am delighted to find that a majority of the US Supreme Court agrees with her.(Not that it would have altered my opinion in the slightest,if we had lost yet again by one vote. The Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles,as I have pointed out before,has gone for clemency in a death case exactly three times since the late 1980's. I am not aware that the three cases in which they did go for clemency was based on innocence claims.In short their record is as abysmal as George Bush's Texas.The only guy Bush ever commuted was a fellow who confessed(probably falsely in several cases) to over fifty killings.And the Georgia governors have been by and large of the same ilk.The first step in getting commuted is knowing your station in life.You don't exhibit the brazen impudence to tell us that we convict any innocent people in this state. I can't give you the citation off the top of my head,but you will find that Scalia (in a majority decision) aalso refused to intervene in a notorious Texas case under Bush on exactly the same grounds --that the state system provided adequate relief and the defendant hadn't made adequate use of it.The fact is that the State of Texas then as the State of Georgia now simply wasn't in fact doing what it theoretically did on paper. Actually,I am very much a states rights man.If a state could provide separate but equal facilities with the full consent of the governed I really don't think the feds should have interfered even there .But the states were given sixty years to clean under the separate but equal doctrine and (except in a few smaller communities)did nothing whatsoever about the stench. The Innocence Review systems in Georgia ,Alabama and a number of other states seem to labor equally precarious conditions at this time.And since most of these board members receive their appointments from the Governor they are obviously rubber stamping his policies. A second point(and I must close for now) Scalia is likewise factually wrong in claiming that the case was reviewed by the lower courts.The previous court claimed(2-1) that they they didn't have to review the evidence(save one minute point) because his attorneys had been not presented it iin a timely fashion. And Tidbits took the majority up on this earlier on our thread and claimed that the function of the appelate court(contrary to the dissenting Justice's belief ) was "extremely narrow".There has never been an evidentiary hearing in a proper court of law as precriped by the Constitution. From a factual ,as well as a constitutional point of view,I would much prefer to see the new DA open a no holds barred investigation of the case at grass roots level.The truth would be much more likely to come out.But it appears as of now that this will never happen. |
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