Death Penalty Disgrace by Bob Barr

"With the effective death penalty act, Congress limited the number of habeas corpus petitions that a defendant could file, and set a time after which those petitions could no longer be filed. But nothing in the statute should have left the courts with the impression that they were barred from hearing claims of actual innocence like Troy Davis’s."--Bob Barr

Listen up. The only thing The Daddy remembers about this Bob Barr dude is that he was a conservative Republican, that he was one of the first congressman to call for the removal of President Clinton from office, and that he was picked to run for president in 2008 by the Libertarian Party, which some said would make him a spoiler, because he would be taking votes away from Sen. John McCain. But did you see his editorial in the New York Times about the Troy Davis case? It was very good and, from a legal point of view, right on the money.

Specifically, Barr said that there is no law that should keep judges from hearing Davis case at the state or federal level. Another way to put it is to ask the question: When a state is involved in the death of a man who could be innocent, shouldn't they give him a full hearing? Here is the article by Barr:

By Bob Barr

Published: May 31, 2009

THERE is no abuse of government power more egregious than executing an innocent man. But that is exactly what may happen if the United States Supreme Court fails to intervene on behalf of Troy Davis.

Mr. Davis is facing execution for the 1989 murder of an off-duty police officer in Savannah, Ga., even though seven of the nine witnesses have recanted their testimony against him. Many of these witnesses now say they were pressured into testifying falsely against him by police officers who were understandably eager to convict someone for killing a comrade. No court has ever heard the evidence of Mr. Davis’s innocence.

After the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit barred Mr. Davis from raising his claims of innocence, his attorneys last month petitioned the Supreme Court for an original writ of habeas corpus. This would be an extraordinary procedure — provided for by the Constitution but granted only a handful of times since 1900. However, absent this, Mr. Davis faces an extraordinary and obviously final injustice.

This threat of injustice has come about because the lower courts have misread the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, a law I helped write when I was in Congress. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee in the 1990s, I wanted to stop the unfounded and abusive delays in capital cases that tend to undermine our criminal justice system.

With the effective death penalty act, Congress limited the number of habeas corpus petitions that a defendant could file, and set a time after which those petitions could no longer be filed. But nothing in the statute should have left the courts with the impression that they were barred from hearing claims of actual innocence like Troy Davis’s.

for the full story, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/opinion/01barr.html?_r=1&th&emc=th. It's worth the read.