I’m thrilled for Troy Davis and his family that the United States Supreme Court issued a decision that new evidence of innocence merits a hearing in a federal court. My lawyer friend, Denny LeBoeuf, tells me we haven’t had such a decision from the Supreme Court in direct response to a plea from a district court in 50 years. It had to be that evidence of innocence was so palpable and Troy’s execution so imminent, that six members of the court threw regular procedural rules out the window.
But not all. There were two dissents, and one of them came from Justice Antonin Scalia. Here’s what he said.
“This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”
If you find that chilling, that means you get it.
I couldn’t believe it when I first read his quote and had to reread it several times. I’m still not sure I’m understanding it correctly, because I find it unthinkable that a member of our nation’s highest court could truly be saying that the procedure of a trial is more important than whether a person is “actually” guilty or innocent.
Personally, I believe that the deliberate, unnecessary taking of a human life is always wrong, and as such, I see the execution of a guilty man as just as morally bankrupt as the execution of an innocent man. But when an innocent man is put to death, there is a secondary tragedy that occurs because the real killer is still out there, and the original victim in the case has been denied the justice he or she deserves. That anyone–let alone a man of the law–could see a jury’s verdict as so sacred as to allow for an innocent man to be killed and a guilty one to go free is incomprehensible. That a confessing Christian holds such a view is heartbreaking.
I could imagine Justice Scalia’s comment coming from many other governments, including Nazi Germany, and Pol Pot’s regime. I guess I assumed Scalia was Catholic.