which is featured in a recommended diary that claims the Supreme Court voted to 6-3 to allow the execution of an innocent person.
That is NOT what the decision was about.
There are multiple opinions in the case, and key in the decision is the concurrence by O'Connor in which Kennedy joined. It begins like this:
I cannot disagree with the fundamental legal principle that executing the innocent is inconsistent with the Constitution.
Take those the two justices from the majority who signed this and it is clear there was NOT a majority for the proposition that it was constitutional to execute an innocent man.
The issue before the Court is when additional evidence for claims of innocence must be considered. She argues that the trial record and the record of all appellate actions since make clear that in this case Herrera is clearly guilty, and thus does not warrant Federal intervention on the basis of habeas corpus.
Here is most of the conclusion of that concurrence, with bolding of important words:
Ultimately, two things about this case are clear. First is what the Court does not hold. Nowhere does the Court state that the Constitution permits the execution of an actually innocent person. Instead, the Court assumes for the sake of argument that a truly persuasive demonstration of actual innocence would render any such execution unconstitutional and that federal habeas relief would be warranted if no state avenue were open to process the claim. Second is what petitioner has not demonstrated. Petitioner has failed to make a persuasive showing of actual innocence. Not one judge--no state court judge, not the District Court Judge, none of the three Judges of the Court of Appeals, and none of the Justices of this Court--has expressed doubt aboutpetitioner's guilt. Accordingly, the Court has no reason to pass on, and appropriately reserves, the question whether federal courts may entertain convincing claims of actual innocence.
One may well disagree with the notion of some limits to filing claims of
habeas but that is a very different thing than saying the Court sanctioned the execution of someone who was innocent. If you read all the opinions in the case, only two Justices could be seen as potentially arguing for the legitimacy of executing someone innocent because of having procedurally had due process, Scalia and Thomas, and Scali's concurrence does not actually go that far. As far as I know Thomas is the only current member of the Court on record in favor of such a notion.
I think it is important that we accurately characterize the actions of the Supreme Court. There is enough they have done wrong - Citizens United, for example - that we can focus on.
I did address this in a comment on the thread of the other diary, but thought I should make the material a bit more visible.
Do with this what you want.