Tyranny of Law
Ivo Skoric
ivo at reporters.net
Wed Feb 26 04:36:08 CET 2003
Society run by law that does not know limits is like a perfect man
without a soul. Are the laws made for the people, or are the people
made for the laws? Is protecting the law more important to us, the
people, the ones who establish laws to rule over ourselves, or is it
protecting the human life, the life one of us?
Prosecutors See Limits to Doubt in Capital Cases
By ADAM LIPTAK
[Unable to display image]udge Laura Denvir Stith seemed not to
believe what she was hearing.
A prosecutor was trying to block a death row inmate from having
his conviction reopened on the basis of new evidence, and Judge
Stith, of the Missouri Supreme Court, was getting exasperated.
"Are you suggesting," she asked the prosecutor, that "even if we
find Mr. Amrine is actually innocent, he should be executed?"
Frank A. Jung, an assistant state attorney general, replied, "That's
correct, your honor."
That exchange was, legal experts say, unusual only for its
frankness.
After a trial and appeal, many prosecutors say, new evidence of
claimed innocence should generally not be considered by the
courts.
While death row inmates have always peppered the courts with
legal filings, the recent wave of death row exonerations, based on
DNA and other evidence, has inspired more defense lawyers and
academics to seek to reopen death penalty cases in a sustained
and vigorous way.
Courts are beginning to express concern that they may be parties
to the occasional miscarriage of justice. Gov. George Ryan's
commutations of the death sentences of all 164 prisoners on death
row in Illinois focused public attention on the issues of wrongful
convictions and flaws in the capital justice system.
Jeremiah W. Nixon, Missouri's attorney general, said Mr. Jung's
response to Judge Stith was a legally correct answer to an
inflammatory hypothetical question. The point Mr. Jung was trying
to make, he said, is that there must come a time when cases can
be closed.
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