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"Not Innocent Enough: The elusive search for the sufficiently innocent death-row victim"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the headline of this Slate article by Dahlia Lithwick, which connects the recent death penalty stories surrounding Troy Davis and Cameron Todd Willingham.  Here is how it starts and ends: For years, death-penalty opponents and supporters have been on what now looks to be an ethical snipe hunt. Everyone was looking for a moment at which everything would change: a case in which a clearly innocent defendant was wrongly put to death.... In June, by a 5-4 margin, the Supreme Court ruled that a prisoner did not have a constitutional right to demand DNA testing of evidence in police files, even at his own expense. "A criminal defendant proved guilty after a fair trial does not have the same liberty interests as a free man," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on September 05, 2009 (boomark / email).