Document Type
Article
Repository Date
2010
Keywords
Miscarriage of justice; habeas remedy; appellate review, deconstruction and justice, legal indeterminacy, judicial misrepresentation, legal deconstruction
Subject Categories
Courts | Law | Legal Theory
Abstract
This essay deals with what "the law" did to Dr. Branion, an American citizen, after the jury convicted him of murder in 1968. Under the American legal system, a defendant is entitled to have his case reviewed by a higher court, and, under certain circumstances, if the appellate review is unsuccessful, to present a petition for habeas corpus to a state or federal court. I will focus primarily on the stage of his litigation with which I am most familiar: his pursuit of a habeas remedy in federal court between 1986 and 1989. I will try to explain how one federal judge after another, using reasons wholly inconsistent inter se, managed to affirm the conviction of a provably innocent man.
Repository Citation
D'Amato, Anthony, "The Ultimate Injustice: When A Court Misstates the Facts" (2010). Faculty Working Papers. 62.
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/facultyworkingpapers/62
