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Constitutional Question

By Steve Hall

That's the title of an OpEd in today's Washington Times by Bob Barr, the former Georgia congressman.  LINK Strange as it might seem, the Supreme Court of the United States has never directly and explicitly held that it is unconstitutional for a state to execute a person about whom substantial evidence of innocence has been presented. However, in a rare exercise of the high court's power to directly order a lower federal court to consider evidence of actual innocence concerning a man already found sentenced to death, at least three justices have declared a willingness to hold that "actual innocence" is constitutionally based. The historic ruling came in the case of Anthony Troy Davis, who was convicted 20 years ago of the late-night shooting death of Savannah, Ga...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on September 03, 2009 (boomark / email).