Davis decision a surprise from this Supreme Court

Over at The American Prospect, Adam Serwer has been doing a great job of following an under-reported, but fascinating story: the Troy Davis case.

For those unfamiliar, which I was until yesterday, Davis was convicted for the killing of a police officer, and placed on death row in 1991. As Serwer writes:

Since his trial, seven of the nine witnesses in his case have recanted, with several fingering the ninth witness as the real killer. There is no physical evidence linking Davis to McPhail’s murder, and several of the witnesses claim they were intimidated into fingering Davis by police. Davis’ appeals for a new trial have been denied time and time again on legal technicalities, despite the large amount of exculpatory evidence that has arisen since his conviction.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court voted 6-2 to send the case back to the federal court and allow Davis to submit evidence to prove his innocence.  Sotomayor did not cast a vote in the decision, and only Justices Clarence Thomas and Anton Scalia issued a dissent.

At first blush, it might look like that’s a surprising decision for a number of reasons. For one, the Davis case, as Serwer mentioned, struck many as a kind of “old-time racism,” where arresting “any black man would do.” In that light, the Roberts court, which has been seen as moving civil rights backwards in recent decisions, seems unusually fair-minded — nay, progressive.

But what makes the case especially interesting, is not necessarily the Court’s decision, but that the Court decided to hear it at all. Davis wrote directly to the Supreme Court in a plea for release — called a writ of habeas corpus — and the Justices granted his plea, something that hadn’t happened in over 50 years. That it happened during the summer months, while the Justices are vacationing, made it all the more unusual.

All together, it suggests the Roberts court might not be the foregone conclusion on race relations that many had come to believe.