"The only issue the Court settled on Monday was whether Skinner could pursue his claim in a civil rights lawsuit under Section 1983, rather than in a federal habeas challenge, to which more procedural limitations apply. That was the issue left unresolved by Osborne. The six-Justice majority in Skinner was made up of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who wrote the majority opinion) and Justice Stephen G. Breyer, both of whom had dissented in Osborne; Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justice Antonin Scalia, both of whom also were in the majority in Osborne; and the two newest Justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, who were not on the Court at the time of Osborne; they replaced now-retired members of the Court who were in dissent in Osborne, Justices John Paul Stevens and David H. Souter."
REPORTER LYLE DENNISTON: THE SCOTUS BLOG;
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BACKGROUND: "Hank Skinner faces execution for a 1993 murder he's always maintained he didn't commit. He wants the state to test whether his DNA matches evidence found at the crime scene, but prosecutors say the time to contest his conviction has come and gone......We told the story of the murders and his conviction and sentencing in the first part of this story." Reporter Brandi Grissom, author of the Tribune series on Hank Skinner, writes: "I interviewed Henry "Hank" Watkins Skinner, 47, at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice — death row — on January 20, 2010. Skinner was convicted in 1995 of murdering his girlfriends and her two sons; Skinner has always maintained that he's innocent and for 15 years has asked the state to release DNA evidence that he says will prove he was not the killer." Texas Tribune;
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"After seeming to close the door in 2009 to constitutional claims by convicted individuals that they were wrongly denied access to DNA evidence gathered at a crime scene, the Supreme Court opened the door — but perhaps only slightly — on Monday," the Scotus Blog post by reporter Lyle Denniston published earlier today under the heading, "DNA access plea allowed: The Court rules that an individual seeking testing of DNA gathered at a crime scene may pursue that claim in a federal civil rights lawsuit, instead of under federal habeas law, which has more restrictions," begins.
"The Court ruled that the federal courts may hear, under civil rights law, a claim by a state prison inmate that his state’s procedures for testing of biological evidence are flawed," the post continues.
"Although the Court majority stressed that it was not raising inmates’ hopes very high, the ruling potentially could have an impact in 46 states that do allow for some testing of DNA — evidence that sometimes provides a powerful demonstration of innocence, or of guilt. (The federal government also allows access to DNA evidence for testing.)
The Court’s new 6-3 decision in Skinner v. Switzer (09-9000) answered a question the Court had agreed to decide, but left open, two terms ago in District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne (08-6), decided June 18, 2009.
In Osborne, the Court by a 5-4 majority ruled that prisoners do not have a constitutional right of access to DNA evidence. That decision, however, rejected a claim only of a “substantive due process” violation in denial of access to such material. On Monday, the Court majority in Skinner found a limited right of “procedural due process,” which the majority opinion characterized as leaving inmates “slim room” to pursue such a challenge. It left it to lower courts to decide whether a Texas death-row inmate, Henry W. Skinner, will actually win his claim that Texas’ DNA evidence law was used wrongly to deny him a chance to test biological material — not previously tested by the state. Police had gathered that evidence in 1993 at a house in Pampa, Texas, where a woman and her two adult sons were murdered. The woman was Skinner’s girl friend; he shared the house with her and her sons.
While the state in prosecuting Skinner for the three murders had made use of some of the DNA evidence found at the scene, Skinner’s lawyers have been trying for ten years to get access to the untested evidence — including vaginal swabs and finger nail clippings from the murdered woman, flood and hairs found on a jacket near the woman;s body, and biological evidence found on knives and a dish towel discovered at the scene. (Before agreeing to hear Skinner’s appeal on the evidence-access issue, the Court postponed his scheduled execution for the crimes.)
The only issue the Court settled on Monday was whether Skinner could pursue his claim in a civil rights lawsuit under Section 1983, rather than in a federal habeas challenge, to which more procedural limitations apply. That was the issue left unresolved by Osborne. The six-Justice majority in Skinner was made up of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who wrote the majority opinion) and Justice Stephen G. Breyer, both of whom had dissented in Osborne; Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justice Antonin Scalia, both of whom also were in the majority in Osborne; and the two newest Justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, who were not on the Court at the time of Osborne; they replaced now-retired members of the Court who were in dissent in Osborne, Justices John Paul Stevens and David H. Souter.
Dissenting on Monday were Justices Clarence Thomas (who wrote the dissenting opinion) and Justices Samuel A. Alito, Jr., and Anthony M. Kennedy, all of whom had been in the majority in Osborne.
Justice Ginsburg went to considerable lengths to claim that the decision was narrow — an effort that perhaps was necessary to hold the votes of the Chief Justice and Justice Scalia. She and the Court’s other more liberal members needed to pick up the votes of either Roberts or Scalia to prevail, and both joined the opinion without qualification.
Ginsburg noted that the Osborne decision had barred an inmate seeking access to DNA evidence any right to that under substantive due process principles, and “left slim room for the prisoner to show that the governing state law denies him procedural due process.” In seeking to make the point — in answer to the dissenters — that the new rulng would not lead to a flood of such civil rights challenges in DNA cases, Ginsburg said that in the areas where federal appeals courts had allowed claims like Skinner’s there had been no evidence of “anylitigation flood or even rainfall.” In addition, the opinion noted that the federal Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 “placed aqseries of controls on prisoner suits,” so as to limit inmate litigation in federal courts."
The post can be found at:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/03/dna-access-plea-allowed/
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=120008354894645705&postID=8369513443994476774
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
