Only the innocent enjoy the right of due process?

by: Jay Stevens

Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 16:44:54 PM MST

Thursday's ruling will inevitably allow some innocent people to languish in prison without having the chance to definitively prove their innocence and with the state never being completely certain of their guilt.

Pretty straightforward, eh?

But then I found a conservative response to the editorial:

As a matter of public policy, there is a legitimate question of how best to chivvy the states along as they legislate access to what amounts to new evidence made available by advances in technology. However, as the WaPo explains, this was an awkward case on which prisoner's rights advocates chose to hang their hats, since the prisoner is almost surely guilty...

Here's the thing, both the innocent and the guilty have a guaranteed constitutional right of due process. Mr. Osborne - the defendant in the case - may, in fact, be guilty. But...why should suspected guilt be a deterrent to the test? Aren't all convicts assumed to be guilty? Should the courts be furthered burdened by resolving requests for DNA tests on a case-by-case basis? Should due process be extended only to the innocent?

As I've written, prosecutors have already fought numerous tests for convicts who were subsequently cleared by DNA tests; those tests, then, serve as a citizen's last recourse for justice against the arbitrary caprices of the state.