Post by A Guest on Jan 12, 2006 0:15:01 GMT -5
Jan. 11, 2006 - WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court today debated how much evidence of innocence prisoners must present for courts to give their cases another look.
The case before the court involves Paul Gregory House, who was convicted in the July 1985 abduction, attempted rape and murder of Carolyn Muncey, a young mother of two, in Union County, Tenn., north of Knoxville.
House, who was on parole for a sex offense in Utah at the time, was convicted and sentenced to death.
Twenty years later, DNA tests, not available at the time of House's conviction, revealed that semen found on Muncey's nightgown and underwear belonged to her husband.
In recent years, as scientific testing of biological materials left at crime scenes has improved, exonerations of death-row inmates have increased, raising concerns among civil libertarians, prosecutors — and Supreme Court justices — that an innocent person could be executed, or already has been.
But the justices didn't focus on the DNA evidence until the end of the hour-long argument. Instead, Justice Antonin Scalia, a proponent of curbing endless inmate appeals, steered the argument toward the strongest piece of evidence remaining against House: spatters of the victim's blood found on the defendant's jeans.
"I agree it would have been a much closer case," Scalia said, had the jury known about the DNA testing. "But once a case has been tried ... we have a much different test. And that is whether any reasonable juror would have found him guilty. That's a very heavy burden."
The case before the court involves Paul Gregory House, who was convicted in the July 1985 abduction, attempted rape and murder of Carolyn Muncey, a young mother of two, in Union County, Tenn., north of Knoxville.
House, who was on parole for a sex offense in Utah at the time, was convicted and sentenced to death.
Twenty years later, DNA tests, not available at the time of House's conviction, revealed that semen found on Muncey's nightgown and underwear belonged to her husband.
In recent years, as scientific testing of biological materials left at crime scenes has improved, exonerations of death-row inmates have increased, raising concerns among civil libertarians, prosecutors — and Supreme Court justices — that an innocent person could be executed, or already has been.
But the justices didn't focus on the DNA evidence until the end of the hour-long argument. Instead, Justice Antonin Scalia, a proponent of curbing endless inmate appeals, steered the argument toward the strongest piece of evidence remaining against House: spatters of the victim's blood found on the defendant's jeans.
"I agree it would have been a much closer case," Scalia said, had the jury known about the DNA testing. "But once a case has been tried ... we have a much different test. And that is whether any reasonable juror would have found him guilty. That's a very heavy burden."