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Supreme Court hears oral arguments in DNA evidence and injured worker cases

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases on Monday. In District Attorney's Office v. Osborne, the Court heard arguments on whether a defendant has the right to obtain post-conviction access to the state's biological evidence under Section 1983 or the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process clause. The US District Court for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Osborne has a right to access the evidence against him on appeal, even though his lawyer made a strategic decision to forgo independent DNA analysis for the trial. The petitioner in the case, the State of Alaska, argued that Osborne does not have a right to the evidence under Section 1983 because the state already allows defendants to access such evidence through a habeas corpus petition if they have made an appeal based on actual innocence, which Osborne has not done. In Atlantic Sounding v. Townsend, the Court heard arguments on whether an injured seaman may recover punitive damages for the willful failure of his employer to pay a basic living allowance, wages that he otherwise would have earned, and benefits to cover medical expenses. The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit had affirmed a lower court ruling that Townsend could recover the damages. Atlantic Sounding, the petitioner in case, contended that the applicable statutes, the Jones Act and the Death on the High Seas Act, do not provide for such expenses.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on March 02, 2009 (boomark / email).