Court finds convicts have no right to test DNA

Source: AP

Court finds convicts have no right to test DNA
By MARK SHERMAN – 22 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says convicts have no constitutional right to test DNA evidence in hopes of proving their innocence long after they were found guilty of a crime.

The decision may have limited impact because the federal government and 47 states already have laws that allow convicts some access to genetic evidence. Testing has led to the exoneration of at least 232 people who had been found guilty of murder, rape and other violent crimes.

The court ruled 5-4 Thursday against an Alaska man who was convicted in a brutal attack on a prostitute 16 years ago.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ix1c3b_XEnmXx0pcQHAss0mFFgiAD98T4PLG1

I suspect that if you asked the majority on this decision they would hide behind something along the lines of 'we in no way denigrate the use of DNA evidence in ensuring that justice is achieved. Unfortunately we find that nowhere in the Constitution is this type of testing guaranteed. So in our strict reading of 'original intent' we can not decide on the side of DNA testing'. Of course this totally ignores that there was no such thing as DNA testing at the time our forefathers wrote the Constitution and therefore there was no way for them to address the subject. This is where the whole 'original intent' argument falls apart when you are trying to adjudicate a subject that could not have been addressed by the writers even if they wanted to.

Roger Brooke Taney like Roberts was from the "Old School" of Stare Decisis (Stare decisis et non quieta movere) maintain what has been decided; not alter that which has been established)

The Supreme Court case that destroyed Taney's historical reputation, Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), and which is considered to be one of the indirect causes of the Civil War. Despite the willingness of five members of the Court to dismiss the lawsuit by Dred Scott seeking his freedom on grounds situated in Missouri law governing who could sue and be sued, Taney wrote what became regarded as the opinion for the Court, presenting Taney's version of the origins of the United States and the Constitution as substantiation for his holdings that Congress had no authority to restrict the spread of slavery into federal territories, and that such previous attempts to restrict slavery's spread as the 1820 Missouri Compromise were unconstitutional.

As he explained the Court's ruling, African-Americans, free or slave, could not be citizens of any state, because the drafters of the Constitution had viewed them as "beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

More http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_B._Taney

Jheesh!

"Justice Scalia, in your view, does the Constitution prohibit the execution of innocent persons?"

Most Americans, I hope and believe, would expect a potential Supreme Court justice to answer the question-whether the Constitution says the government may not subject an innocent person to execution-with a simple, uncompromising "Yes." "Yes. The Constitution absolutely prohibits the execution of innocent persons."

Most Americans would expect this answer because most Americans believe, as they should, that the Constitution, if it does nothing else, protects all citizens from the most egregious forms of governmental injustice and oppression. If they remember any part of the Constitution at all, average Americans are likely to remember the preamble, with its declarations of Justice, Tranquility, and Liberty, and its open support for the greater good of all Americans.

That is not the Constitution Antonin Scalia reads. And the answer Antonin Scalia would have to give to the question-Does the Constitution prohibit the execution of innocent persons?-is a simple, uncompromising"No." Scalia's answer can be found in his decisions and extra-judicial statements about rights, punishment and the Constitution"

http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:Asmh_BE2YrIJ:www.fdp.dk/act/text/030421-scalia.pdf+scalia+execution+innocent&cd=2&hl=ja&ct=clnk&client=safari

it would gum up the works.

They're in jail because God wants them to be. Scientific evidence be damned. :sarcasm:

would allow the state to knowingly execute an innocent man?

Guilt and innocence are trifling technicalities.

:crazy:

In Dallas, Texas several people have been proven innocent by testing DNA evidence. There should be not time limit on DNA testing.

So ineffective lawyers in some states can actually be the gatekeeper to real justice if those state lack laws the clear majority of other states offer. How nice for our country.

What happens if the DNA test links him to 2 other unsolved rapes.

Or pray tell exonerates him both HAPPENED IN WISCONSIN. The convicted guy, Avery walked, after 18 years, and some other Rapist in Prison was the actually the Perpetrator. (After a JURY trial where the victim identified Avery.) Thanks to Atty Barry C. Scheck and the Innocence Project.

Roberts is a NEOCON LAPDOG of War Criminal Cheney and the Corporatists

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism

White folk can simply point to non-white folk as the guilty!!! This system has worked so well for centuries why change it?

This is absurd because it would cost a shit load of money and who knows how many innocent people we find...Nothing can be done to expose the system for what it is!

The courts must defend the justice system's privilege to oppress the innocent.

The AP headline is meant to be flashy.

It ain't all that.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/08-6.pdf

Basically, as I read it, if there is Due Process in the state for dealing with access to the State's evidence for DNA testing, then you can't take it to the Federal courts as a separate Constitutional right.

As it happens, Alaska doesn't have good precedence or laws on the books yet for how to deal with the issue, but the court basically said that this was a State issue and chose not to expend the rules of Due Process under the Constitution.

Beyond that, the precedence that the Appeals court referred to in order to expand that right, was related to pre-trial access, not post-conviction access.



Now, I will say, that I would personally prefer that Due Process, at the Federal level, be expanded to include access to State-held genetic evidence for the purposes of DNA testing.

But this doesn't have any impact on the statutes that already exist in most states concerning access to State-held genetic materials and DNA testing.

This is because he is attacking his conviction as being improper.

the plaintiffs could refile claiming that Due Process needs to include evaluation of all available DNA evidence? Or is that also a loser from a constitutional point of view?

expired. Not sure if that is true in a criminal case. But, I don't get the impression this Court would agree with this guy anyway.

Candidly, he sounds guilty to me. Even his attorney thought he was guilty. That's why she did not ask for the most conclusive DNA evidence during his trial. She thought it would nail him. So, she stayed with the form of testing that had a 20% margin of error.

is hard about giving DNA tests to convicts who could be innocent?

Source: Washington Post

Supreme Court: Prisoners Have No Right to DNA Evidence

By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 18, 2009; 12:16 PM

The Supreme Court ruled today that prisoners have no constitutional right to DNA testing that might prove their innocence long after their convictions. In the court's first examination of how to deal with the rapidly evolving field of DNA evidence, the court's conservative majority prevailed in ruling against establishing a post-conviction constitutional right to DNA evidence.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority and said that almost every state and Congress had provided ways for prisoners to get testing that might prove their innocence. This is not the time for federal courts to get involved in the process, he said.

- snip -

Roberts acknowledged that Alaska is one of a handful of cases that has not passed such a law, but he said the state's courts provide a way for prisoners to get access to DNA evidence.

But that has not helped William G. Osborne, who was convicted of the rape and assault of a prostitute in a secluded area near the Anchorage International Airport in 1993. Osborne wanted to pay for a more advanced test of semen found in a condom at the crime scene, one that prosecutors agree would almost definitively prove his guilt or innocence. Justice John Paul Stevens said Alaska's refusal to allow the testing is the reason the court should have found there is a constitutional right.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/18/AR2009061801610.html

Supreme Court nominees, present and future?

Another reason I think people should be happy about Obama; he's our hope for breaking that conservative hold.

...but his monumental stupidity will live on for decades in the US Supreme Court.

before asking a federal court for relief.]

Either (1) pursue remedies under state law;

Or (2) show that remedies under state law would be inadequate if he did pursue them.


The alleged rapist did neither of those things, but tried an end run around the states by trying to proceed under a federal statute, Section 1983. And, besides, if he was going to do an end run, he should have gone for habeas, not Section 1983.

The SCOTUS also seems to be saying, though, that the states need to deal with the DNA issue for themselves bc the SCOTUS is not going to hold that the Due Process Clause of the federal Constitution requires post-conviction access to DNA evidence, especially when it was avaiable at trial (pre-conviction). I am not sure on this point, though.

The decision is more nuanced and complex than the headline of the story indicates. However, I get the impression that the Roberts court is really saying, "If we help out this guy, there will be no end to the state cases we will be asked to hear and we are not about to expand our caseload that way.

most likely "we are not about to expand our caseload". Either way, justice is being denied, and the courts are not doing their jobs.

"Hey buddy, our conviction rate is in the tank. We need somebody to take the hit for this here crime. We picked you."

Incredible!!!

Hope that fucked-up decision is quickly reversed via a new justice on the bench.

DAYUM!!!

that means 3 obvious things:

1. There are at least 232 unsolved crimes out there.

2. The perpetrators of those crimes have not been brought to justice, (at least not for the 232 exonerated cases).

3. Innocent individuals have been executed, if even one innocent individual was executed, it is one too many.

DNA evidence should be required at the beginning of a prosecution of the types mentioned. Odd how prosecutors are more than willing to use it for a conviction, but shy away when a conviction may be dubious. Just start the process w/a DNA test...i guess this is just too damn logical to figure out...:eyes:

Sonia Sotomayor's 'empathy' isn't all it's cracked up to be

By JEFFREY DESKOVIC | 6/15/09 6:18 AM EDT

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who grew up poor in the South Bronx, has worked hard to get where she is.

In a career that took her from a Bronx housing project to Princeton University, Yale Law School, various jobs and now the federal bench, she has said that she tries to keep in mind the real-life implications of her rulings when meting out justice. Such a high-minded moral standard is what we, as a society, should expect and seek from all our judges, especially a Supreme Court justice. But considering that we are talking about a lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court, we should see if, in practice, her rulings reflect that.

A review of her record in my case shows that Sotomayor’s practice does not live up to her promise.

At age 17, I was wrongfully convicted of murder and rape, despite a negative DNA test and hair found on the body that did not match mine. My conviction was based upon a coerced, false confession, the fabrication of other evidence, prosecutorial misconduct and fraud by the medical examiner. I was cleared 16 years later — almost three years ago — when further DNA testing reaffirmed my innocence while identifying the real perpetrator, who subsequently confessed and was sentenced.

more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/23724.html

Dallas has a Democratic DA named Craig Watkins who's working with the Innocence Project to spring the wrongly convicted from prison. Give us time to repeat the pattern throughout Texas while the rest of you look for DA candidates who will do the same thing.

:banghead: