Supreme Court to consider death row plea for DNA testing

Supreme Court to consider death row plea for DNA testing

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The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Feb. 24 in the case of a man on Texas death row who has long tried to obtain postconviction DNA testing on evidence that he says would exonerate him. Ruben Gutierrez was sentenced to death for the 1998 murder of 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison in Brownsville, Tex. Gutierrez has maintained his innocence and says DNA from several pieces of evidence — such as a hair and nail scrapings from Harrison’s finger and … Read the rest

Jackson dissents in denial of Louisiana man’s death-row evidence plea

Jackson dissents in denial of Louisiana man’s death-row evidence plea

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Over a dissent from the court’s three liberal justices, the Supreme Court turned down a request from a Louisiana man on death-row to weigh in on when someone else’s confession is the kind of evidence that the Constitution requires prosecutors to turn over. The court’s denial of review in Brown v. Louisiana came at the end of a list of orders from the justices’ private conference last week.

The justices did not add any new cases to their docket … Read the rest