Justice Alito has been pro-prosecution most of his professional life, serving as a Federal Prosecutor in New Jersey before taking the bench. But in a move no doubt designed to balance his image in the public eye, his first Opinion assignment was to write for a unanimous Court reversing a South Carolina conviction in a capital case. It’s hard to imagine any other result in this case, even though the State courts of South Carolina affirmed the conviction of Bobby Lee Holmes all the way down the line, holding that his right to present evidence of a 3rd party’s guilt could be limited in the face of “overwhelming forensic evidence” of his guilt. There’s that CSI effect again, putting a high premium on the value of forensic evidence. Not so fast, said Alito.

“The true strength of the prosecution’s proof cannot be assessed without considering challenges to the reliability of the prosecution’s evidence,”

Alito went on to characterize South Carolina’s rule as “arbitrary” and strongly reaffirmed the right of a defendant to present a complete defense, no matter how strong the state’s case.

The interesting thing about this case was the Court’s unanimous stance rejecting South Carolina’s attempt to give so much weight to forensic evidence that it would allow the trial court to limit the ability of the defendant to put on a defense. The crime scene included a palm print, fibers, and DNA of the defendant, and even with that tri-fecta lineup, the Supreme Court made clear that limiting the right of a defendant to put on a defense is still a no-no.

Read more about the Opinion here.

RP

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 11th, 2006 at 8:13 pm and is filed under Cool Science, News, DNA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.