A “full and fair trial” is not a trial where 7 of the 9 witnesses later recant their testimony. Isn’t the effect of these recanted testimonies, perhaps, the same as finding that DNA evidence that shows that the convicted person did not commit the crime? Do we pretend that because all of the i’s were dotted and the t’s were crossed during the trial that the trial was therefore “fair”? Apparently that is what Scalia advocates.

In this blog’s previous life I had profiled exonerated death row inmates as they were realeased. Were it not for DNA evidence they would have been executed. In many cases testimony was either flat-out wrong or perjured. And in some of the cases the testimony was coerced by police and prosecutors. But no one pretended that they had a “fair” trial and should be executed anyhow. Maybe some did and that such people are involved in our “Justice” system scares me.

Our Supreme Court was not asked to decide on the guilt or immocence of the defendant in this matter. They were being asked, essentially, if the lower court should take another look at this case. Sounds reasonable to me. But Justices Scalia and Thomas thought that this was anything but reasonable. Their argument was that courts and officials lower than them had not seen fit to reexamine the case and therefore the decision and the execution should stand.

The case is that of Troy Davis, who is on death row in state prison there for the 1989 murder of an off-duty police officer. You can read about it here and here.

I am not a lawyer so this is just an ordinary person looking at a case from the outside. But you have to ask yourself where is the Justice when a case that has no physical evidence is not reexamined when the vast majority of the witnesses admit that they lied. Several say that they were intimidated by police into implicating Davis.

According to Time: “On Friday, Georgia Superior Court Judge Penny Haas Freesemann rejected Davis’s last-minute appeal, saying that the recanted testimony did not provide justification for a new trial. Georgia prosecutors have maintained that Davis has already had opportunities in court to present his evidence.”

On what planet or system of justice can a judge say that “recanted testimony did not provide justification for a new trial”? This is mind boggling. Where is the pride in our Justice system? Isn’t this antithetical to all it stands for? And what about the position of the prosecutor? He “had opportunities in court to present his evidence.” Yes, he did. But your “evidence” was perjured!

I am not saying that this man is innocent or guilty. But when the case against him is built on the perjury of over 77% of the witnesses I think that a new trial would be the only fair course. Or am I missing something here?

Justice would seem to demand that this should have not taken the intervention of the Supreme Court to get the state of Georgia to rethink this case. No thanks to Justices Scalia and Thomas those of us without money and power in this country can sleep better knowing that perjured testimony will not be allowed to stand in our courts.