For many years, proving a dead man innocent and forcing a state to admit it has been the Holy Grail of campaigners opposed to the death penalty. They believed one case might well have changed American public opinion, which runs at 65 per cent in support of the death penalty. Sadly and perhaps perversely the US Supreme Court, in a five-four decision, ruled in June that a prisoner had no constitutional right to demand DNA testing of evidence held by police. In August, two of the Supreme Court's members, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, in a dissenting opinion, nevertheless disclosed views that exist at the highest level of the US justice system. They wrote: "This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent."......
For those who don't believe that Governor Perry or the US system would be capable of killing an innocent, it is worth considering one fact; 17 people have left death row alive because DNA testing proved their innocence after a death sentence. They served an average of 12 years in prison.
