Justice Scalia: Ensuring Innocent People Get Out Of Prison Is A ‘Faustian Bargain’

A man who may be locked up for a murder he did not commit should not be allowed to challenge his conviction, according to Justice Antonin Scalia and his three most conservative colleagues. And three members of the Supreme Court seem to believe that most people jailed due to unconstitutional convictions should have no recourse to the federal courts. At least, that’s what emerges from a four justice dissenting opinion written by Scalia in a case dealing with the rights of state prisoners who may be “actually innocent” of the crime they were convicted of committing.

McQuiggin v. Perkins is a fairly unusual case. After being sentenced to life in prison for murder, Floyd Perkins spent years gathering three affidavits from witnesses corroborating his claim that another man committed the crime. Yet he sat on this new evidence for nearly six years before presenting it to a federal court. Justice Scalia’s dissent claims that a one year statute of limitations prevents Perkins from presenting six year-old evidence that he may be innocent. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s majority opinion holds that “actual innocence” may overcome this one year time limit, although she also requires prisoners in Perkins’ shoes to overcome a very high bar before their claims of innocence may succeed in federal court.

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