In cases of death penalties, the pursuit of justice is not the highest value of America

Jimmie Christian Duncan learned in April 2025 that a judge in Louisiana had rejected his conviction for the capital murder and that he was no longer exposed to the prospect of execution. In 1998, a jury condemned to have murdered his girlfriend's 23 -month -old daughter, and since then he has been in the death cell.

Louisiana has a long and restless death penalty. From 1976 to 2015, 80% of the state's capital sentences were reversed in the appeal procedure, and 12 people were relieved of his death cell.

But the state of Bayou is not the only state for the death penalty with an illegal convict problem. In the United States, the relief for the death line – if someone is released, are released after a conviction. More than 200 people have been released in the last half century.

DNA evidence was only involved in a handful of these cases, but not in Duncan. Most of the others have occurred as a defense lawyer discovered new evidence of the identified identified eyewitnesses or when the public prosecutor's misconduct determined doubts about the legality of the conviction.

Duncan's case stands up because it was the first successful use of Louisiana's 2021 facts -inocence statute. According to this law, the review of convictions can be based on new facts rather than just constitutional or legal violations of the rights of a accused.

As the district judge of Louisiana, Alvin Sharp, explained in his statement from April 2025 in Duncan's case: “Possibly a” factual innocence “claim has to be successful, a petent must present a new, reliable and non-cumulative evidence that are legally permissible or discovered during or before the legal proceedings.”

When Duncan's conviction was canceled, Sharp emphasized new understanding of the unreliability of the so-called Bite-Mark analysis, which played a key role in Duncan's case. He also quoted the testimony of a “very convincing witness” who said that the child's death “accidentally drowned”, not defender.

It may seem strange that the factual innocence law was necessary in 2021 to do what Sharp had made possible. But as a deathal scientist, I believe that it is the latest memory that the search for justice, even in capital cases, was not always the highest value of the United States.

The shadow of Herrera against Collins

States such as Louisiana have issued factual innocence laws because there are no nationwide, constitutional legal chamber to lead people who are objectively innocent. More than three decades ago, the US Supreme Court reclaimed a contestation of the constitutionality of the execution of people who may not have committed the crime for which they were sentenced to death.

In February 1992, 10 years after his conviction, Leonel Herrera submitted a Habas Corpus – a legal steps that were questioned with the legality of the detention of a person. Herrera said he had new evidence that he had not committed the murder for which he had been sentenced to death.

Herrera's lawyers argued that the implementation of a factually innocent person violated the eighth change and prohibits the cruel and unusual punishment. He also said that it would violate the guaranteed legal guarantee of the fourteenth amendment.

Herrera wanted the courts to consider affidavit that were administered long after Herrera's conviction. These affidavits claimed that Raul Herrera, Leonel Herrera's brother, said before his death that he was guilty, not Leonel, because the murder was convicted of Leonel.

However, the Supreme Court refused to check this evidence.

A 6–3 majority came to the conclusion that the proof of the actual innocence was “not relevant … without other constitutional injuries”. This decision means that as long as applicable legal procedures are followed, it does not matter whether the result is correct.

Make a place for the actual innocence

It is not surprising that the abolitionists for the death penalty about the result in Herrera's case were horrified. They saw it as tolerated the execution of the innocent.

And in 2013, the Supreme Court opened the door for the legal dispute of the actual innocence claims within the framework of the law over the anti -terrorus and the effective death penalty, which restricts the Habeas Corpus rights of the prisoners.

The court permitted prisoners who can demonstrate the proof of innocence, a habeas petition even after the normal deadline for submitting a habeas petition. However, it was not said that the execution of the innocent would violate the constitution.

The states have reacted by issuing laws that enable the people convicted of crimes to raise actual innocence claims based on newly discovered DNA evidence.

In 2012, Massachusetts passed a law that enabled the prisoners to apply for a “forensic or scientific analysis” of evidence in order to “assert the factual innocence of crime for which the person was condemned”.

Five other states of Louisiana, Maryland, Texas, Virginia and Utah-Gaden adopt laws that allow actual innocent claims after the conviction, even without DNA evidence.

After the statute of Louisiana, which Duncan called, “a petent who was convicted of a crime can look for relief because he is objectively innocent in the crime for which he was convicted.”

In Louisiana, new evidence can be “scientific, forensic, physical or non -stimonial documentary evidence”. Under certain conditions, certificates are also permitted in order to prove innocence in cases according to the convention.

Someone who applies for such a relief must prove that “by clear and convincing evidence that the new evidence in the process would have been presented not to be guilty of a rational juror to be guilty.”

Opposition against the actual innocence

Many people refuse to enable convicted criminals to reopen their cases, even if they are in the death cell like Duncan.

In the Herrera case, for example, Chief Justice William Rehnquist said that this would have a “very disturbing effect … on the need for final in capital cases”.

It looks as if Louisiana are again weighing the value of final and justice in capital cases.

The governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, would like to see how his actual innocence is lifted, it refers to it as a “bright, huged guideline” and argues that “as soon as a judgment has no longer been concluded, there is no longer free cards”.

In the legislative meeting in the legislature in Louisiana, a draft law was introduced to change the law.

The missions could not be higher.

As the former judge of the Supreme Court of Harry Blackmun wrote in his dissent from Herrera: “Just like an execution without reasonable protective measures, it is also a execution if the convicted prisoner can prove that he is innocent. The execution of a person who can prove that he is innocent, dangerously close to the simple murder.”

Louisiana will soon have to decide how close it is to produce this tragic result.