Supreme Court Orders Hearing on Death Row Inmate’s Innocence Claim

A death row inmate who claims the Eighth Amendment bars his execution because he is innocent of the crime will get a hearing before a federal district judge, thanks to intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In an unusual order issued today, the U.S. Supreme Court told a Georgia federal judge to hear the claim of actual innocence by Troy Anthony Davis, SCOTUSblog reports. The U.S. Supreme Court had denied cert in Davis’ case in October. Seven of nine witnesses at Davis’ trial for killing a police officer have recanted their testimony, and the case has attracted international attention.

Justices Antonin Scalia and John Paul Stevens issued dueling opinions on the propriety of the order, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, argued in a dissent that the federal judge won’t be able to grant relief under a 1996 law restricting habeas review of state convictions.

“Transferring this case to a court that has no power to grant relief is strange enough,” Scalia wrote in his dissent (PDF posted by SCOTUSblog). “It becomes stranger still when one realizes that the allegedly new evidence we shunt off to be examined by the district court has already been considered (and rejected) multiple times.” Scalia said Davis’ claim of actual innocence is an assertion that he didn’t pull the trigger of the gun that killed a police officer, even though he had helped beat a homeless man that brought the officer to the scene.

Justice John Paul Stevens responded that it would be “an atrocious violation of our Constitution and the principles upon which it is based” to execute an innocent man. His opinion (PDF posted by SCOTUSblog) was joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Supreme Court’s order today is unusual for two reasons, SCOTUSblog says. First, the petition was an original writ of habeas corpus filed in the Supreme Court, and such claims rarely succeed. Second, it is unusual for the Supreme Court to take significant actions during the summer recess.

In April, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in Atlanta rejected Davis’ claim in a 2-1 decision. The New York Times recently highlighted the dissenting opinion by Judge Rosemary Barkett in a story about the increasing frequency of dissents in losing federal appeals by death row inmates.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor did not take part in today's order.