Is the U.S. Supreme Court capable of dispensing justice after a wrongful conviction?

Hank Skinner, long-time resident of Death Row in a Texas prison, is waiting to learn whether the U.S. Supreme Court will rule evidence that might prove his innocence should undergo testing, or be ignored. (Please see the “In Justice” posts of March 23 and March 25.)

I don’t know whether Skinner is a murderer or an innocent man. But I do know that if a majority of the Supreme Court justices care about truth, they will play a role in seeing that the evidence undergoes testing.

The worry is that when it comes to criminal justice system malfunctions, at least five of the nine justices care less about truth than about finality.

The criminal justice systems across the United States–in state trial courts that op0erate at the county level, in state appellate courts and in federal courts–are biased in favor of finality. Put another way, after an innocent defendant has pled guilty or been convicted by a judge/jury, the presumption reigns that the case should be over, forever.

Finality is a virtue most of the time–nobody should want cases to drag on and on after the original disposition. But the worship of finality ignores the frequency of wrongful convictions in some jurisdictions around the nation.

Those who pay close attention to the U.S. Supreme Court understand that much of the time, a majority of the current justices (plus some recently retired or deceased justices) have emphasized finality beyond reason. That is worrisome enough. Add to that worry the lack of professional integrity demonstrated by some of the justices in monumental cases, with Bush v. Gore during 2001 being perhaps the most notable. Issuing a 5-4 ruling, the slim majority violated legal precedent and common sense by making George W. Bush president before meaningful recounts in a close election could occur.

The alarming lack of integrity demonstrated by that ruling is not simply my personal opinion. Justice John Paul Stevens–the senior member of the court by chronological age and length of service–wrote for publication, “Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of this year’s presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.” Stevens–a Republican lawyer appointed by a Republican president–also wrote that the majority ruling could “only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land.” 

If I were Hank Skinner, I would feel obviously relieved that the Supreme Court halted my execution an hour before my scheduled death. I would also retain at least a scintilla of hope that a majority of the justices would understand the importance of testing evidence. But I would not harbor feelings of optimism.