Guilty until Proven Innocent: The Tragedy of Habeas Capital Appeals
![handle is hein.journals/jlp18 and id is 783 raw text is: Guilty Until Proven Innocent:
The Tragedy of Habeas Capital Appeals
Bernard A. Williams*
I. INTRODUCTION
[O]ur system of criminal justice does not work with the efficiency
of a machine - errors are made and innocent as well as guilty people
are sometimes punished. . . . [Tihe sad truth is that a cog in the
machine often slips: memories fail; mistaken identifications are
made; those who wield the power of life and death itself - the police
officer, the witness, the prosecutor, the juror, and even the judge -
become over-zealous in their concern that criminals be brought to
justice.'
-Justice Thurgood Marshall, 1972.
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an
innocent one.2
-Voltaire, Zadig, 1747.
Potentially exonerating evidence discovered after a defendant is
convicted of a capital crime at trial generally is not considered in
court as a basis for overturning that conviction, even if an actually
innocent person will be executed. This Article argues that proof of
actual innocence offered in federal habeas corpus court should be
enough to reverse a death sentence or, in the alternative, should
warrant the grant of a new trial or a new sentencing hearing. Federal
habeas courts should review de novo capital sentences, asking whether
the factfinder, presented with the newly discovered evidence in
* Law Clerk to the Honorable Theodore McMillian, United States Court of Appeals for the
Eighth Circuit;J.D., New York University; B.A., Arnerican University. I would like to thank Beth
Gunn, Debbie Korenblat, Marilyn Tanaka,Julie Tang and Brian Walsh for their excellent
editorial ass'stance and helpful feedback. I would also like to thank Erin Randolph for her
invaluable support during the writing process.
'Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 368 n.158 (1972) (Marshall, J., concurring) (internal
quotations omitted).
2Tiu INTERNATIONAL, TIISAtJRIS OF QUOTA'TIONS § 515.50 (Rhoda Thomas Tripp ed.,.
1970).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jlp18&div=29&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Guilty until Proven Innocent: The Tragedy of Habeas Capital Appeals
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