CHAPTER 7 INNOCENCE
| Jurisdiction | United States |
Chapter 7 Innocence
This chapter explores the degree to which a habeas petitioner's claim of innocence factors into the petitioner's ability to receive relief through a federal habeas petition. The materials also reflect the advent of DNA testing, which has led to the exoneration of more than 250 persons since 1989,1 and the impact that this developing forensic evidence has on post-conviction litigation.
Herrera v. Collins involved a petitioner who based his federal habeas petition on newly discovered evidence of actual innocence. The Court held that claims of actual innocence based on newly discovered evidence are not in and of themselves grounds for federal habeas relief: in addition to an innocence claim (whether based on newly discovered evidence or not), a successful petition must also include an independent constitutional violation from the underlying criminal proceeding. In Schlup v. Delo, the petitioner joined his innocence claim with a constitutional claim, alleging that his counsel was ineffective and that the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence. Although Schlup could not meet the "cause and prejudice" standard for his successive habeas petition, because Schlup used his innocence claim as a gateway to litigate his constitutional claim, the Court distinguished Schlup from Herrera and said a habeas court can consider procedurally defaulted constitutional claims if the petitioner shows that it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have found him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In House v. Bell, the petitioner asserted his innocence as a freestanding claim and as a gateway through which to raise procedurally barred constitutional claims. The new evidence he offered to prove actual innocence included exculpatory DNA evidence. The Court found his case is the "extraordinary case" permitting habeas review under Schlup, but declined to decide if there is a freestanding innocence claim because House did not meet the threshold implied in Herrera. In District Attorney's Office for the Third District v. Osborne, the Court considered the claims of a prisoner who brought a federal civil rights action to gain access to evidence to conduct post-conviction DNA testing. Osborne made a due process claim as well as asserting his actual innocence. The Court did not answer the question of whether a defendant can gain access to evidence through a civil rights action or whether his claims are cognizable only in habeas. Rejecting the lower court's application of a Brady v. Maryland due process framework for granting Osborne's claim, the Court instead found that Alaska's post-conviction statutes are adequate on their face for those who seek access to DNA evidence. The Court refused to "constitutionalize" the issue by recognizing a freestanding right to access DNA evidence and again left open the question of whether there is a constitutional right to be released upon proof of "actual innocence." At the same time, the Court recognized, for the first time, that a convicted defendant can have a state-created, constitutionally protected liberty interest in proving his actual innocence that survives his conviction. In In re: Troy Anthony Davis, the Court took the unusual step of exercising original habeas jurisdiction to remand Davis's case to the federal district court for an evidentiary hearing to allow Davis to produce new evidence of actual innocence.
CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner Leonel Torres Herrera was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in January 1982. He unsuccessfully challenged the conviction on direct appeal and state collateral proceedings in the Texas state courts, and in a federal habeas petition. In February 1992 — 10 years after his conviction—he urged in a second federal habeas petition that he was "actually innocent" of the murder for which he was sentenced to death, and that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process of law therefore forbid his execution. He supported this claim with affidavits tending to show that his now-dead brother, rather than he, had been the perpetrator of the crime. Petitioner urges us to hold that this showing of innocence entitles him to relief in this federal habeas proceeding. We hold that it does not.
Shortly before 11 p.m. on an evening in late September 1981, the body of Texas Department of Public Safety Officer David Rucker was found by a passer-by on a stretch of highway about six miles east of Los Fresnos, Texas, a few miles north of Brownsville in the Rio Grande Valley. Rucker's body was lying beside his patrol car. He had been shot in the head.
At about the same time, Los Fresnos Police Officer Enrique Carrisalez observed a speeding vehicle traveling west towards Los Fresnos, away from the place where Rucker's body had been found, along the same road. Carrisalez, who was accompanied in his patrol car by Enrique Hernandez, turned on his flashing red lights and pursued the speeding vehicle. After the car had stopped briefly at a red light, it signaled that it would pull over and did so. The patrol car pulled up behind it. Carrisalez took a flashlight and walked toward the car of the speeder. The driver opened his door and exchanged a few words with Carrisalez before firing at least one shot at Carrisalez' chest. The officer died nine days later.
Petitioner Herrera was arrested a few days after the shootings and charged with the capital murder of both Carrisalez and Rucker. He was tried and found guilty of the capital murder of Carrisalez in January 1982, and sentenced to death. In July 1982, petitioner pleaded guilty to the murder of Rucker.
At petitioner's trial for the murder of Carrisalez, Hernandez, who had witnessed Carrisalez' slaying from the officer's patrol car, identified petitioner as the person who had wielded the gun. A declaration by Officer Carrisalez to the same effect, made while he was in the hospital, was also admitted. Through a license plate check, it was shown that the speeding car involved in Carrisalez' murder was registered to petitioner's "live-in" girlfriend. Petitioner was known to drive this car, and he had a set of keys to the car in his pants pocket when he was arrested. Hernandez identified the car as the vehicle from which the murderer had emerged to fire the fatal shot. He also testified that there had been only one person in the car that night.
The evidence showed that Herrera's Social Security card had been found alongside Rucker's patrol car on the night he was killed. Splatters of blood on the car identified as the vehicle involved in the shootings, and on petitioner's blue jeans and wallet were identified as type A blood—the same type which Rucker had. (Herrera has type O blood.) Similar evidence with respect to strands of hair found in the car indicated that the hair was Rucker's and not Herrera's. A handwritten letter was also found on the person of petitioner when he was arrested, which strongly implied that he had killed Rucker. * * *
Petitioner * * * returned to state court and filed a second habeas petition, raising, among other things, a claim of "actual innocence" based on newly discovered evidence. In support of this claim petitioner presented the affidavits of Hector Villarreal, an attorney who had represented petitioner's brother, Raul Herrera, Sr., and of Juan Franco Palacious, one of Raul, Senior's former cellmates. Both individuals claimed that Raul, Senior, who died in 1984, had told them that he—and not petitioner—had killed Officers Rucker and Carrisalez. * * * The State District Court denied this application, finding that "no evidence at trial remotely suggest[ed] that anyone other than [petitioner] committed the offense." * * * The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, * * * and we denied certiorari. * * *
In February 1992, petitioner lodged the instant habeas petition—his second—in federal court, alleging, among other things, that he is innocent of the murders of Rucker and Carrisalez, and that his execution would thus violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. In addition to proffering the above affidavits, petitioner presented the affidavits of Raul Herrera, Jr., Raul Senior's son, and Jose Ybarra, Jr., a schoolmate of the Herrera brothers. Raul, Junior, averred that he had witnessed his father shoot Officers Rucker and Carrisalez and petitioner was not present. Raul, Junior, was nine years old at the time of the killings. Ybarra alleged that Raul, Senior, told him one summer night in 1983 that he had shot the two police officers. * * * Petitioner alleged that law enforcement officials were aware of this evidence, and had withheld it in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963).
The District Court dismissed most of petitioner's claims as an abuse of the writ. * * * However, "in order to ensure that Petitioner can assert his constitutional claims and out of a sense of fairness and due process," the District Court granted petitioner's request for a stay of execution so that he could present his claim of actual innocence, along with the Raul, Junior, and Ybarra affidavits, in state court. * * * Although it initially dismissed petitioner's Brady claim on the ground that petitioner had failed to present "any evidence of withholding exculpatory material by the prosecution," * * * the District Court also granted an evidentiary hearing on this claim after reconsideration. * * *
The Court of Appeals vacated the stay of execution. * * * It agreed with the District Court's initial conclusion that there was no evidentiary basis for petitioner's Brady claim, and found disingenuous petitioner's attempt to couch his claim of actual innocence in Brady terms. * * * Absent an accompanying constitutional violation, the Court of Appeals held that petitioner's claim of actual innocence was not cognizable because...
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