Court Opinion

ID: 9432542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:35:41.605426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:34.430704
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
dissenting.
Last Term the Court ruled that Roger Coleman could not present his arguments on the merits to the federal courts, simply because the person then acting as his attorney had made a trivial error in filing his notice of appeal three days late. Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722 (1991). While I dissented from that ruling — and still believe it was erroneous — I found some consolation in the Court’s suggestion that matters might have been different had Coleman argued that he was actually innocent of the crime. See id., at 747-751, 757.
Coleman has now produced substantial evidence that he may be innocent of the crime for which he was sentenced to die. Yet the Court once again turns him away, this time permitting the Commonwealth of Virginia to execute him without a hearing at which his evidence could be fully presented. The Court’s ruling is all the more troubling for me, in view of this Court’s decision to hear argument next Term in a case in which the petitioner contends, just as Coleman does, that evidence of his innocence entitles him to a hearing on the merits. Herrera v. Collins, No. 91-7328, cert. granted, 502 U. S. 1085 (1992).
I have previously voted to stay an execution pending this Court’s decision next Term in Herrera. See Ellis v. Texas, 503 U. S. 915 (1992); Ellis v. Collins, 503 U. S. 915 (1992). I *190cannot believe that Coleman, who raises a substantially identical claim, should be denied all possibility of relief simply because his petition reached this Court later than did Leonel Herrera’s. Accordingly, I would stay the execution.
Justice Souter would grant the application for stay of execution.