“Innocence Isn’t Enough”: Arizona Urges the Supreme Court to Send Barry Jones Back to Death Row

[Jason]

“Innocence Isn’t Enough”: Arizona Urges the Supreme Court to Send Barry Jones Back to Death Row

THEINTERCEPT.COM

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The case has far-reaching implications: Should new evidence be ignored by the federal courts even when it exposes a wrongful conviction?

 

[skillzdadirecta]

Jesus...

[Ghost_MH]

How is someone supposed to prove their council was ineffective without being able to present evidence proving their council was ineffective? My lord, this country is full of some blood thirsty fucks.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

5-4 they’re gonna kill this guy because they’ll be more concerned about the “ramifications” of letting an innocent man live

[Guest]

I would say the language of the law is on Arizona’s side and that’s why AEDPA needs to be updated or repealed. It is typical 90s era tough on crime junk law.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

34 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

I would say the language of the law is on Arizona’s side and that’s why AEDPA needs to be updated or repealed. It is typical 90s era tough on crime junk law.

It’s plainly cruel and a violation of the defendants 6th&8th amendment rights to execute them especially in this case but that’s what these psychos want. 

[Guest]

5 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

It’s plainly cruel and a violation of the defendants 6th&8th amendment rights to execute them especially in this case but that’s what these psychos want. 

We should be making it easier to challenge unfair trials. A lot easier. One other issue is we need much better funding of public defenders. The resource gap between the average prosecutor and average public defender stacks the deck so far against the accused that it is a surprise they ever win. A ton of IAC claims really spring out of this issue of defense lawyers not having the resources to properly investigate relevant aspects of the case against their client.

[TwinIon]

I definitely thought that "innocence isn't enough" was going to be a quote from the article, not a direct quote from a state lawyer arguing before the supreme court.

 

Also, pretty nuts that this guy was in prison for over twenty years, proven innocent, and has remained there for an additional four years and counting because AZ doesn't want Federal courts the ability to find any of their prisoners innocent.

 

At least the article made it sound as if SCOTUS didn't seem like they were too on board with overturning Martinez. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett wanted to take this case just so the could point and say "hey look, we respect good precedent," while at the same time overturning Roe.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

8 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

We should be making it easier to challenge unfair trials. A lot easier. One other issue is we need much better funding of public defenders. The resource gap between the average prosecutor and average public defender stacks the deck so far against the accused that it is a surprise they ever win. A ton of IAC claims really spring out of this issue of defense lawyers not having the resources to properly investigate relevant aspects of the case against their client.

Agreed. But the conservative justices look at this and say that doing these things would overburden the justice system so if you don’t have good counsel then “lol gg wp” 

 

see connick v Thompson and Herrera v collins for how I see this case going btw

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

I definitely thought that "innocence isn't enough" was going to be a quote from the article, not a direct quote from a state lawyer arguing before the supreme court.

 

Also, pretty nuts that this guy was in prison for over twenty years, proven innocent, and has remained there for an additional four years and counting because AZ doesn't want Federal courts the ability to find any of their prisoners innocent.

I would say it’s incorrect to say he has been proven innocent. The state’s theory of the crime may be incorrect, but there remains significant circumstantial evidence of the man’s guilt. One thing that I’ve had a hard time reconciling has been that Barry told the girl’s mom he had taken her to get checked out at the fire station down the street after they found that her head was bleeding from a fresh wound. He never did, and later admitted to lying about this.

 

The child had certainly been abused for an extended period of time in that home. She was malnourished at the time of her death as well, weighing only 28 pounds at age 4. She had many fresh bruises and well as ones that were likely weeks old. The difficult thing is knowing who did what to the child, but I would guess both the mom and boyfriend were participants.

 

Either way, a fair trial and proper representation is the right of both the guilty and the innocent. Pretty hard to argue against his IAC claim here, both at his trial and as he sought post conviction relief.

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Agreed. But the conservative justices look at this and say that doing these things would overburden the justice system so if you don’t have good counsel then “lol gg wp” 

 

see connick v Thompson and Herrera v collins for how I see this case going btw

I can imagine a scenario where they uphold the lower courts here and just make it clear that IAC claims are different from all other evidentiary restrictions because the issue at hand is things that did not make it into the state record *because of* the IAC.

[TwinIon]

2 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

I would say it’s incorrect to say he has been proven innocent. The state’s theory of the crime may be incorrect, but there remains significant circumstantial evidence of the man’s guilt. One thing that I’ve had a hard time reconciling has been that Barry told the girl’s mom he had taken her to get checked out at the fire station down the street after they found that her head was bleeding from a fresh wound. He never did, and later admitted to lying about this.

 

The child had certainly been abused for an extended period of time in that home. She was malnourished at the time of her death as well, weighing only 28 pounds at age 4. She had many fresh bruises and well as ones that were likely weeks old. The difficult thing is knowing who did what to the child, but I would guess both the mom and boyfriend were participants.

 

Either way, a fair trial and proper representation is the right of both the guilty and the innocent. Pretty hard to argue against his IAC claim here, both at his trial and as he sought post conviction relief.

Fair enough. I didn't read too much in to the actual case. It does seem to be safe to say that it seems extremely unlikely he remains in prison for this charge, absent SCOTUS ruling with AZ.

[legend]

Posing such an argument ("Innocence is not enough") is beyond maddening.