9th Circuit Declares Actual Innocence Irrelevant

9th Circuit Declares Actual Innocence Irrelevant
July 8, 2010 12:02 PM, by Ed Brayton

In one of the most appalling court rulings imaginable, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has decided that the fact that a convicted criminal can now be proven to be innocent does not matter if he filed an appeal in 16 months rather than the 12 months allowed by the statute of limitations. Actual innocence simply does not matter, only technicalities do. You can see the full ruling here.

We have previously refrained from deciding whether there is an actual innocence exception that serves as a gateway through the AEDPA statute of limitations to the merits of a petitioner's claims. Instead, we have assumed such an exception and have evaluated the actual innocence claims themselves, waiting until a state prisoner shows actual innocence to answer the legal question.