The Supreme Court Just Said That Evidence of Innocence Is Not Enough | Hacker News Reader

The Supreme Court Just Said That Evidence of Innocence Is Not Enough

thedailybeast.com

56 pointsdgellow23 comments

> Thomas justifies the court’s decision by arguing that a federal review imposes “significant costs” on state criminal justice systems that includes potentially overriding “the State’s sovereign power to enforce ‘societal norms through criminal law.’”

As I read it, this means, in effect, that if your state wants you to be guilty, you're guilty, federally-granted Constitutional rights be damned. The appeal being on the grounds of ineffective counsel, it's unclear why Thomas is even invoking criminal law at all, except to have some straws to grasp at to push forward this flagrant abuse of citizens' rights.

> For the highest court in the land, the state of Arizona killing an innocent man is not a perversion of the criminal justice system, but rather emblematic of its smooth functioning.

What kind of 1984 bad dream is this? Is it time to go full-on revolt and DeFi SCOTUS?

This is egregious incompetence, SCOTUS is misrepresenting the will and best interests of their constituents, the American Tax Payers.

I don't want to live in a country where we accept

> Guilty until proven innocent. And even then..

Another informative article with additional details lacking in TFA:

https://www.vox.com/2022/5/23/23138100/supreme-court-barry-j...

This ruling when combined with the recent ruling in Patel v. Garland - stating that defendants have no legal recourse in the event of governmental clerical errors, paints a terrifying picture of what remains of the rule of law in the United States

What are we going to do about this unconstitutional and out-of-control Supreme Court? What can be done?

I'm beginning to think that impeachment is in order. If we don't have the political will (that is, if Senate doesn't swing left this November) then that and court-packing would be out of the question. Beyond that, the perverted modern interpretation of the second amendment very well may be the final option. But that would almost certainly devolve into civil war at this point.

Short of a revolution, burning the Constitution, tearing down the government and starting over from scratch, nothing but stand and watch the right wing do victory laps over the corpse of the Republic for the next decade or two. God knows American leftists and the Democrats aren't going to do a damned thing about it.

How would you propose that leftists and Democrats "do a damned thing about it?" The Senate is gerrymandered to favor rural populations. State legislatures (with few notable exceptions) are gerrymandered to favor rural populations. Short of a revolution (ahem, but personal gun ownership and the infantry of the military favors rural populations), what could be done?

Well the right wing isn’t trying to nullify the second amendment, they haven’t caused massive inflation, they haven’t caused a gas crisis, I’m ok with their nutso god and abortion beliefs as it seems like the lesser evil.

Let's not act like if the democrats started the ball rolling on inflatable. That was all trump with him pressuring the fed to keep interest rates low and this tax cuts.

You get to say roe v Wade repeal is ok because you're a guy so women's rights be damned. It doesn't ever affect you.

when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The title skews quite a lot what happened.

Here's the link to the ruling.

  https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/20-1009.html

The quote about innocence, is not actually a quote about innocence, and is not given by a judge (justice) on the Supreme Court. Let's look at it:

  "reasonable probability that the jury would not have unanimously convicted [Jones] of any of the counts"

This judge does not express a view that in his opinion there's evidence for innocence. He just states that there's some probability that some members of the original jury might have found grounds for reasonable doubt.

In any case, this judge does not say anything about innocence. His opinion was that there was not enough evidence for guilt, not that there was evidence for innocence.

You could say it's all the same, just semantics. After all the principle is "innocent until proven guilty".

It's not just semantics. The title here suggests that the Supreme Court justices have seen actual evidence for the innocence. What could that be?

The uncontroversial fact is that a little 4 year old girl died because of ruptured internal organs. She also had injuries consistent with rape. The jury, after seeing whatever evidence the prosecutors presented decided that the defendant was guilty of rape and murder.

Evidence for innocence would be an alibi. Maybe the defendant was in a different country at the time this all happened. Alternatively, evidence for innocence would be evidence that someone else raped and murdered the girl.

But that's not what was being argued. What was being argued was that somehow the girl was raped and her organs ruptured and then she died, but the totality of evidence leaves some room for reasonable doubt that the defendant was the rapist and murderer (but with no alternative perpetrator).

So, the whole ruling of the Supreme Court is about various technicalities about incompetent counsel, and when a retrial is warranted. But nobody in the Supreme Court ever said that "evidence of innocence is not enough".

[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1009/166813/202...

You're avoiding the point of this case altogether, and focusing on the salacious details of the crime to distract from the very technical matter before the court. The accused had, through no fault of his own, unconstitutionally inept representation for his first case, and, through no fault of his own, unconstitutionally inept representation for the second case. The matter before the court is that the courts will not admit evidence of innocence. If the accused is innocent, and has evidence of such, it was never allowed into the court record. Do we have evidence that the accused is innocent? No, not in the public record, because the court won't allow it. The ruling, instead, focuses on the salacious details of the crime to distract from the technical matter at hand. Because, apparently, blind pursuit of justice is simply too expensive, and it's preferable to kill the innocent when the state provides incompetent representation and the accused cannot afford better.

I’m not avoiding thay at all. I stated that the SCOTUS ruling is about procedure, the right for competent council, etc.

But what the article implies is that the justices have seen the evidence that a man is innocent and is being put to death, and they just don’t care. And that is simply not true.

You're right, they didn't see any such evidence. But that's a moot point because the accused is procedurally blocked from presenting it.

Who's "they"? The judges? Are you kidding? When someone appeals, they present the new evidence to the court. The judge then determines if a new trial is warranted or not, and if the evidence is to be presented to a jury or not.

In any case, you can find the "evidence" described in [1], pages 31-37. And you can also find there pages and pages of gruesome details. The guy was guilty as sin.

[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1009/166813/202...

Your hedge about "no alternative perpetrator" assumes competence on the part of the police.

This should be at the top of this topic's thread.

Here is a much better article on this case:

https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/05/conservative-majority-hol...

This Radical activist supreme court is out of its mind.

No! They're not radical or activist, because they're Republicans. Only Democrats are activists.

True. Changing the definition of "well regulated militia" in the Second Amendment wasn't judicial activism, it was just common sense.

They're not radical or activist, because they're Republicans.

If you think the two sides of the above (as split by the conjunction "because") are in conflict or otherwise -- you haven't been paying attention to the last 40 years of the right-wing political resurgence in the United States.

I've been paying attention. Only Republicans are legitimate rulers in the USA. Only Republican policies and favored rights are legitimate in the USA. I was being a little sarcastic to try to emphasize that even though the current SCOTUS majority is ignoring precedent and has freed themselves from logic, they won't be labeled "activist" by any media, because the media lets Republicans frame issues and set agendas.

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