Denial of justice and the PCA.

• Author: Cherry, Paul S.
• Position: Letters - Letter to the editor

President Bookman is right on track when he decries the efforts to truncate the availability of DNA testing to the incarcerated ("Justice Should Never Be Denied," April). Setting artificial deadlines to appeal convictions or to preserve DNA evidence strikes at the root of substantive due process. Those set free due to DNA evidence are living proof that the system failed them. We lawyers, as officers of the court, have the fundamental obligation to keep these lines of inquiry open to substantiate and justify the existence of our independent judiciary.

A bigger, deeper, and more disturbing issue regarding the denial of justice is the imposition of the district courts of appeal as the final arbiter in a case (civil or criminal) when the DCA issues a per curiam affirmance. The DCA judges use their PCA power to close the gate to the Supreme Court and to deny any further action in a case. The Supreme Court likes this method of keeping their workload down. In fact, they encourage it, and they have stated that they want cases to rise to the DCA level and no further unless there is a conflict to give them subject matter jurisdiction. As recently as March 30 in Jackson v. State and the joined cast of Braxton v. State, the Supreme Court has re-affirmed their position that they like their very limited scope of subject matter jurisdiction; they will not entertain any case, no matter how important the issue may be if the DCA issued a PCA; nothing any party may do will spur them to rise to the judicial occasion and take the case, citing their limited jurisdiction (putting the rabbit into the hat and pulling it out...