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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 5:21 am Post subject: Scalia, Executions, and Innocence |
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Brief Article.
| Excerpt 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. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged �actual innocence� is constitutionally cognizable. |
Not the kind of thing it's nice to hear a Supreme Court Justice saying. Maybe one could argue this in some technical sense (though I'd say a reasonably compelling case could be made for it being unconstitutional to execute even a guilty person based on the 8th amendment), but still, this come off as raw evil. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 7:13 pm Post subject: |
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And when you consider what has constituted "a full and fair trial" at times, this is very scary.
Yet another reason to abolish the death penalty. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 9:02 pm Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| Yet another reason to abolish the death penalty. |
Any punishment system that cannot be reversed -- or at least be immediately and compensated for -- if the accused is later found innocent has no place in our society.
How it is that so many in our society can see that chopping off an alleged thief's hand is unreasonable, but fail to see that taking an alleged murder's life is unreasonable is beyond me. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 9:14 pm Post subject: |
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^ As I have been accused, "There you go being sensible again!"
But it gets worse. I believe the Court has actually affirmed that innocence is no bar to execution. Maybe Kuros or someone can give the citation.
And, "full and fair" trials have included some in which the defendant's lawyer slept during the trial! 
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