The Supreme Court today overturned the Texas death sentence of Delma Banks:

The Supreme Court, acting on a case that has become a cause celebre among capital punishment opponents, overturned the death sentence of a long-serving Texas inmate who claimed prosecutors played dirty and withheld evidence at his trial. The court's action, announced Tuesday, came in the case of a man who came within minutes of execution before the body stepped in last year to stop it.

The high court's 7-2 ruling means Banks can continue to press his appeals in lower courts. Banks maintains he is innocent, and that he was framed by lying witnesses who were bought off by the state.

Banks was able to document how prosecutors kept quiet as key witnesses against Banks lied on the stand, and how the state hid those witnesses' links to police through round after round of appeals, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the high court majority. "When police or prosecutors conceal significant exculpatory or impeaching material, it is ordinarily incumbent on the state to set the record straight," Ginsburg wrote for the high court majority.

Ginsburg was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter and Stephen Breyer. Scalia and Thomas would have sent the case back to the lower courts for further findings.

Mr. Banks' efforts to overturn his death sentence were backed by former F.B.I. Director William Sessions and a group of judges, who wrote an amicus brief on his behalf. The case is Banks v. Dretke, 02-8286. All of our coverage is here.

You can read about the malfeasance in the Banks case here. Bob Herbert comments here. The Supreme Court granted cert last April on these three issues.