Update: The Innocence Protection Act is scheduled for markup before the Senate Judiciary committee tomorrow (session starts at 10:00 am).

Why do we need the IPA?

So we never read another opinion like this one -- Burton v. Nixon, July 8, 2002, 8th Circuit Court of Appeals: (link to full text)

"Darryl Burtonís habeas petition depicts a troubling scenario. One cannot read the record in this case without developing a nagging suspicion that the wrong man may have been convicted of capital murder and armed criminal action in a Missouri courtroom.

Burton was convicted on the strength of two eyewitness accounts. Since his trial and imprisonment, new evidence has come to light that shakes the limbs of the prosecutionís case. One eyewitness has recanted and admitted perjury. The other eyewitnessís veracity has been questioned by a compatriot who avers it was physically impossible for him to have seen the crime.

A layperson would have little trouble concluding Burton should be permitted to present his evidence of innocence in some forum. Unfortunately, Burtonís claims and evidence run headlong into the thicket of impediments erected by courts and by Congress. Burtonís legal claims permit him no relief, even as the facts suggest he may well be innocent. Mindful of our obligation to apply the law, but with no small degree of reluctance, we deny Burton a writ....

....we have squarely rejected the notion that a prisoner may receive a writ simply because he claims he is innocent. ì©laims of actual innocence based on newly discovered evidence have never been held to state a ground for federal habeas relief absent an independent constitutional violation occurring in the underlying state criminal proceeding.î Meadows v. Delo, 99 F.3d 280, 283 (8th Cir.
1996) (quoting Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, 400 (1993)).

For more on the bi-partisan Innocence Protection Act currently before Congress.