U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has expressed opinions about death penalty sentences that are dead wrong, said Tom Boggioni in an opinion piece published online by Raw Story.
Boggioni points to the case of Henry Lee McCollum, convicted for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl more than 30 years ago.
Making reference to McCollum’s case in 1994, Scalia wrote that “a quiet death by lethal injection” should be considered “enviable” when compared to the murder of a little girl.
Fortunately, Scalia’s opinion didn’t speed up McCollum’s execution. Last year, McCollum and his half-brother, Leon Supreme Court Justice Scalia’s Death Penalty Views ‘Dead Wrong’ Brown, were cleared by investigators using DNA evidence and the two men were pardoned and released from prison.
Boggioni also noted that in 2001, after the Supreme Court had ordered a retrial in another controversial capital case, Scalia wrote this surprising opinion: “This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted File photo Justice Antonin Scalia defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”
Scalia’s written statement about the Constitution not protecting “actual innocence” was written well before McCollum‘s death penalty was overturned. But by ignoring the finality of death penalties when wrongfully applied, Scalia acquiesced to the possible execution of innocent people in the future.
