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Troy Davis Goes to SCOTUS

By Kent Scheidegger et al.

Troy Anthony Davis is scheduled for execution in Georgia a week from now for the murder of police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Prior posts here, here, and here. He has applied to the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution, according to this post on SCOTUSblog by Lyle Denniston. According to Lyle, "The key issue his appeal raised is whether the Court will rule ? in a way it has only assumed previously ? that it is unconstitutional to execute a person who is innocent of the crime, and has substantial evidence to support that claim." What the Court actually said in Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, 417 (1993) (emphasis added), was: We may assume, for the sake of argument in deciding this case, that in a capital case a truly persuasive demonstration of "actual innocence" made after trial would render the execution of a defendant unconstitutional, and warrant federal habeas relief if there were no state avenue open to process such a claim...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime and Consequences on September 16, 2008 (boomark / email).