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Comment by FireBeyond | Hacker News Reader

And then you go to Supreme Court, and SCOTUS says:

> The Constitution, Scalia wrote, does not prevent the government from executing a person who new evidence indicates might be “actually innocent” — that is, someone with the potential to legally demonstrate they did not commit the crime for which they were convicted.

And have locked in on this:

> In Shinn v. Ramirez, the court voted 6 to 3 to overrule two lower courts and disregard the innocence claims of Barry Lee Jones, a prisoner on Arizona’s death row. Importantly, the majority did not rule that it found Jones’s innocence claims unpersuasive. Instead, it ruled that the federal courts are barred from even considering them. Thomas wrote the opinion.

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https://capitalpunishmentincontext.org/resources/casesummari...

> A proper remedy for claim of actual innocence based on new evidence, which is discovered too late to file a new trial motion, would be not federal habeas relief, but rather to file for executive clemency with the state.

https://www.pullanyoung.com/blog/dont-panic-over-shinn-v-ram...

> Shinn does not affect “new factual predicate” claims. If a witness changes their story 5 years after trial, you can still validly raise that claim both as a subsequent state writ and as a 2254 federal petition. Same goes for new scientific evidence, Brady violations, etc. None of those things can be characterized as the defendant's fault for not raising them earlier.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/01/arizona-d...

> federal courts should show enormous deference to the states, even when federal judges believe a state court is wrong.

These decisions seems more about federalism? I mean, if you want to blame someone, blame the involved state for not considering the exculpatory evidence. For example Barry Lee Jones is out now - but it is because of an Arizona judge, not a federal one.

The Supreme Court is extremely selective about what cases should be deferred to states and which should be the realm of the federal courts. They needed to federally abolish affirmative action in college admissions, but when a person is being put to death unjustly that's a state issue. If a website designer hypothetically refuses to design a website for a gay couple that's a federal issue.

Eight amendment should trump any states right rigamarole.

Of course Ianal, but come on. States rights is really just wrangling about accounting and tons of grandstanding between opposing sides of our two party system.

> I mean, if you want to blame someone, blame the involved state for not considering the exculpatory evidence.

I do. But I also wonder about the role of the "highest court in the land", when other courts, state or federal, "decline" to hear appeals with factual evidence of innocence.

I don't think "Too bad, that's the law, just lobby to have it changed" is an acceptable response to someone facing capital punishment.

The federalist system is more complicated than that. To justify taking a case to the federal court system, it has to affect relations between US states, relations between any US entity and a foreign entity, events and actions that take place across state lines, federal laws, or Constitutional amendments. IANAL so the specifics aren't perfectly accurate, but that's roughly where the line is.

If the Supreme Court routinely interferes in matters purely inside of a US state where it has no jurisdiction because no national-level question exists, it could well provoke a constitutional crisis.

The Interstate Commerce clause seems to be available to SCOTUS whenever they want it.

An innocent person put to death despite evidence that would exonerate them is an issue of national-level concern on many levels.

14A says that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law".

I think it's reasonable to argue that "due process of law" should not, broadly speaking, involve executing people who are known to be innocent.

Well that's where Scalia's statement comes in - he argues that the state has no duty to avoid executing innocent people, only that all relevant procedures were followed. To use an example from history, if witchcraft was a crime, and the townspeople found someone guilty of witchcraft, they have no duty to accept a time traveller's defense that witchcraft is scientifically impossible and the person is therefore innocent. The "due process" was the trial and witch tests, not a modern scientific consideration of the facts. I don't know Scalia's actual opinion, but I would be surprised if he did not find these witch executions judicially justifiable. Presumably he would argue that the proper way to avoid burning witches at the stake would be to change the laws supporting such activities.

> These decisions seems more about federalism?

They are in part about federalism and in part about the absence of a right to have a verdict reviewed if it was arrived at properly, irrespective of new evidence discovered later.

Were such a right to exist under the Constitutiom, federalism would no longer require the federal courts to stay out of state cases involving such claims, since there would br a justiciable question of federal law.

Worth noting that this was a party-line vote in the 2022 court, so it doesn’t really tell us much about what the law is suppose to mean.

But the judges are just interpreting the law /s

> someone with the potential to legally demonstrate they did not commit the crime for which they were convicted

that includes everyone convicted of a crime, all of the time.

unless you think due process requires endless appeals, you probably agree with Scalia

Shinn v. Ramirez overturns Martinez v. Ryan, use the state court instead. where in the constitution does it say there is federal jurisdiction for that kind of claim?

"Endless appeals" is such a blatant strawman here. If there is new evidence available (or old evidence that was wrongly excluded), then of course an appeal is justified, no matter how many appeals happened before. Anything else would be mockery of justice.

the system for evaluating whether new evidence is "new evidence" already exists and is not what is being claimed here. read more into the facts and proceedures of the legal system please.

The Constitution is supposed to guarantee us due process of law.

As a citizen, I firmly believe that a legal system that would condemn a man who is likely innocent to die is not "due process of law" in any meaningful sense. Even if you're correct and the precedent is that this is how it is, well then, too bad for the precedent.

If that was his real stance, and someone who does believe in up and down, I think he is burning in hell for being in position of power to stop, but went on to kill innocent people.

Also in subject of death row, recently watched rather good movie based on true events: Trial by Fire. Interesting how that case was based on pseudo-science and even thought the governor knew he still let Cameron to be executed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_Fire_(2018_film)

I think he (and others) have a strong belief that is how the judicial system should work -- that appeals courts do not re-examine evidence.

The executive system can grant clemency, etc.

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