The six capital punishment decisions which were decided during the 2005-2006 Term involved issues concerning: (1) a challenge to the lethal injection protocol as cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8 th Amendment ( Hill v. McDonough) , (2) constitutionality of a death penalty state statute that requires death if plus and minus factors are in balance ( Kansas v. Marsh ), (3) whether petitioner's compelling new evidence, though at the very least a colorable claim of actual innocence, was as a matter of law insufficient to excuse his failure to present that evidence before the state courts ( House v. Bell ), (4) disagreement among the courts regarding whether witness testimony was "mitigating evidence" (designed to spare the 18 year old from lethal injection) or "alibi evidence"(that went directly to whether the defendant was guilty) which should have been presented during the guilt or innocence phase of the trial ( Oregon v. Guzek ), (5) whether State's law governing admissibility of third-party guilt evidence violates the capital defendant's constitutional right to present a complete defense premised on due process, confrontation, and compulsory process clauses ( Holmes v. South Carolina ), and (6) whether a new trial is warranted if two of several aggravating factors found by the jury are later held to be invalid ( Brown v. Sanders ). In three cases the Court kept alive the appeals of the death row inmates in Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina. In the other three cases, the Court affirmed the States' death penalty sentences. On June 12, 2006, the Court, held unanimously, that the use of lethal injection as a form of execution in the State of Florida constituted a challenge to the cruel and unusual provision of the Eighth Amendment and properly raised a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which provides a cause of action for civil rights violations, rather than under the habeas corpus provisions. The petitioner (Hill) challenged Florida's injection protocol under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as likely to cause him severe pain and suffering, but the lower courts construed his suit as a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C.§2254 and dismissed it as a procedurally barred second and successive petition. In an opinion written by Justice Kennedy, the Court reversed noting the distinction between challenges to the lawfulness or duration of confinement, which must be brought via a habeas corpus petition, and challenges to the circumstances, which need not be. The difference is that the former, but not the latter, necessarily challenges the legality of a sentence i.e., finding that a state cannot detain or execute an inmate in one particular manner does not mean that it cannot detain or execute him at all. The reasoning of the Court in Hill was that although Florida law prescribed lethal injection as the means of execution, it left the specific method of injection up to the correction officials, and Hill challenged only the particular, three-drug sequence intended for his execution. Inasmuch as Hill left open the possibility that Florida could execute him by lethal injection by another method, a decision in his favor under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 did not imply that his sentence by lethal injection generally is unlawful. The Court was sensitive to the concerns raised by Florida, the United States Solicitor General and others that death-row inmates will simply challenge individual aspects of their planned executions one at a time and thereby effectively block their executions. Notwithstanding, the Court rejected a proposal to require prisoners such as Hill to identify in their complaints alternative means of execution that they would accept. According to the Court, heightened pleading requirements should result from changes to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure similar to the specific pleading requirements which are mandated by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and not, as a general rule, by case-by-case litigation. The Court also noted that filing a section 1983 action does not entitle an inmate to a stay of execution, which allows courts to consider factors such as whether a suit is speculative or filed too late in the day. At least temporarily, the decision in Hill may delay executions as challenges to the constitutionality to the state's lethal injection method of execution are addressed and decided. On June 12, 2006, the Court decided its second death penalty case in a 5-3 decision with Justice Kennedy joined by Justices Breyer, Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg for the majority (Justice Alito did not participate). This case raised an issue which has hung over the imposition of capital punishment in recent years as it relates to newly discovered evidence and the possibility that an innocent person could be executed. Paul House sought release from Tennessee's death row based on what his appeal to the Court calls "new reliable evidence" of innocence which involves an application of the "miscarriage-of-justice" exception to the procedural default of state claims in federal court under Schlup v. Delo . House claimed that DNA tests show that the semen found on the murder victim, Carolyn Muncey's clothes belonged to her husband, Hubert Muncey, and not to House, as a jury in Union County, Tenn., found 20 years ago. The lower federal courts rejected his claims. The issue before the Supreme Court was first how strong his case for innocence must be to qualify for habeas review in federal court. In addition, House asked the Court to resolve an issue left open earlier and find the new evidence exonerated him. Although the Court has not explicitly decided that it is unconstitutional to execute a convicted but innocent person, it suggested the possibility in 1993 in Herrera v. Collins . There in a 5-4 opinion, however, it ruled that Leonel Torres Herrera had no right to reopen his case 10 years after his conviction, based solely on his claim of new proof of innocence. Justices O'Connor and Kennedy joined that opinion without endorsing the suggestion and with the stipulation that they believed that there was little doubt of Herrera's guilt. The House Court referred to the standard of Schup v. Delo and held that it was more likely than not that no reasonable juror viewing the record as a whole would find House guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority, noted that "...'all the evidence, old and new, incriminating and exculpatory, without regard to whether it would necessarily be admitted under rules of admissibility that would govern at trial'" must be taken into account. He stated that when an inmate comes to federal court with evidence of innocence, "[t]he court's function is not to make an independent factual determination about what likely occurred, but rather to assess the likely impact of the evidence on reasonable jurors." The majority decided that House's revelation about DNA and the blood stains were enough to overcome the strict standards that must be met before prisoners are allowed to re-argue issues of innocence long after their convictions. They declined to reach, however, the question left open in Herrera , whether the Constitution precludes execution of an "actually innocent" defendant found guilty and sentenced in a constitutionally adequate trial. Should such a right exist, House had failed present evidence of sufficient persuasion to claim it. Chief Justice Roberts, in the dissent, said the majority had ignored the trial judge's determination that House and several of his witnesses were unreliable. The Chief Justice also noted that the trial judge had found that Muncey's autopsy blood was spilled on House's jeans after the FBI already had determined that the blood on his pants belonged to the victim. Justice Roberts' dissent agreed with the majority on the Herrera issue, but argued that despite the evidence, "the case against House remains substantially unaltered from the cases presented to the jury." As a result, Justice Roberts said, the Schlup standard was not met. The judgment upholding the denial of habeas corpus relief was reversed, and the case was remanded for consideration of House's procedurally barred claims. Holmes was convicted of multiple crimes, including first degree murder, and sentenced to death. At his trial, the court did not allow Holmes to present evidence that a third party had committed the crimes he had been charged with. On May 1, 2006, the Supreme Court, with Justice Alito writing the opinion for a unanimous Court, ruled that South Carolina had deprived Bobbie Lee Holmes of a fair trial when it prevented him from putting on evidence contradictory to the State's case and which also pointed to another possible suspect. The prosecution relied heavily on forensic evidence that strongly supported petitioner's guilt. The petitioner sought to rebut the State's forensic evidence by introducing expert testimony suggesting that the evidence had been contaminated and that the police had engaged in a plot to frame him. The petitioner also sought to introduce evidence that another man by the name of Jimmy McCaw White had been in the victim's neighborhood on the morning of the assault and White had either acknowledged petitioner's innocence or admitted to committing the crimes himself. In White's pretrial testimony, he denied making the incriminating statements and provided an alibi for the time of the assault. The trial court excluded petitioner's third-party guilt evidence citing the State Supreme Court's Gregory decision, which held that this evidence is admissible if it raises a reasonable inference as to the defendant's own innocence, but is inadmissible if it merely casts a bare suspicion or raises a conjectural inference as to another's guilt. The State Supreme Court, affirming the trial court, cited both Gregory and its later decision in Gay , and held that where there is strong forensic evidence of an appellant's guilt, gratuitous evidence regarding a third party's alleged guilt does not raise a reasonable inference as to the appellant's own innocence. Applying this standard, the South Carolina State Supreme Court held that the petitioner could not overcome the forensic evidence against him. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari based upon the question regarding whether South Carolina's rule governing the admissibility of third-party guilt evidence violates a criminal defendant's constitutional right to present a complete defense grounded in the Due Process, Confrontation, and Compulsory Process Clauses.