Missouri governor pardons couple who aimed guns at BLM protesters

[Dill]

(08-10-2021, 05:32 PM)GMDino Wrote: Related.  Opinion piece.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/09/why-we-cant-trust-states-prevent-wrongful-convictions/
The Missouri Supreme Court says there’s nothing to be done. “This case is not about whether Johnson is innocent,” the court wrote in the case of Lamar Johnson. “This case presents only the issue of whether there is any authority to appeal.” (Incredibly, 30 elected Missouri prosecutors submitted a brief not only arguing that Johnson should remain in prison despite his innocence, but that St. Louis District Attorney Kim Gardner behaved unethically when she asked a court to release him.)

Indeed, across the country, state attorneys general routinely defend bad convictions by default. They oppose DNA testing, and fight even when there’s overwhelming evidence of innocence or prosecutorial misconduct.

Next term, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of Barry Jones, an Arizona man sentenced to death for the murder of his then-girlfriend’s daughter. As with the Missouri cases, the issue in Jones’s case isn’t whether the new evidence proves Jones’s innocence. The state is arguing that the federal courts are prohibited from even considering that question, and that the new evidence is irrelevant because Jones is procedurally barred from using it.

What’s truly astonishing is that the state would even make such an argument in the face of a clear injustice. And that exposes the lie at the heart of AEDPA’s restriction on federal court review — that state courts and state officials can be trusted to protect the innocent and respect the rights of the accused. The record is clear: They can’t.

Yow!! This could have been a thread in itself. 

I'd like to take a closer look at some of these legal rationales.