Herrera v. Collins
Does a convicted person's freestanding claim of actual innocence, based on newly discovered evidence but unaccompanied by any independent constitutional violation at trial, entitle that person to federal habeas corpus relief?
The Decision
6-3 decision · Opinion by William H. Rehnquist · 1993
Majority Opinion— William H. Rehnquistconcurring ↓dissent ↓
In a 6–3 decision authored by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the Supreme Court ruled against Herrera. The majority held that a freestanding claim of actual innocence based on newly discovered evidence does not, without more, entitle a petitioner to federal habeas corpus relief. The Court emphasized that federal habeas review exists to ensure that individuals are not imprisoned or executed in violation of the Constitution, not to provide a forum for retrying questions of factual guilt or innocence long after a constitutionally fair trial has concluded.
The majority traced the history of habeas corpus and concluded that claims of newly discovered evidence have traditionally been addressed through executive clemency, not through the courts. Chief Justice Rehnquist noted that all fifty states and the federal government provide mechanisms for clemency, such as pardons and commutations, and that this system represents the historic remedy for miscarriages of justice discovered after the trial process has run its course. The Court described clemency as deeply rooted in the Anglo-American legal tradition and as the 'fail safe' of the criminal justice system.
The majority also reasoned that the passage of time seriously undermines the reliability of newly discovered evidence, since witnesses' memories fade, witnesses die, and evidence deteriorates. The Court found Herrera's affidavits to be of questionable reliability — they were produced a decade after trial, came largely from interested parties, and pointed to a man who was conveniently deceased and could never be cross-examined.
Importantly, while the Court expressed strong skepticism about freestanding innocence claims, it assumed without deciding that 'in a capital case a truly persuasive demonstration of actual innocence made after trial would render the execution of a defendant unconstitutional, and warrant federal habeas relief.' However, the Court stressed that the threshold for such a hypothetical showing would be 'extraordinarily high' — and that Herrera's evidence fell far short of meeting it. The conviction and death sentence were therefore allowed to stand. Herrera was ultimately executed on May 12, 1993.
Concurring Opinions
Justice O'Connor, joined by Justice Kennedy, wrote a concurrence emphasizing that the execution of a legally and factually innocent person would be a 'constitutionally intolerable event,' but agreed that Herrera had not met the necessary threshold. Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, wrote separately to argue more forcefully that there is simply no constitutional basis for a freestanding claim of actual innocence on federal habeas review, rejecting even the majority's hypothetical assumption that a sufficiently persuasive innocence claim could warrant relief. Justice White concurred in the judgment on narrower grounds.
Dissenting Opinions
Harry A. Blackmunjoined by John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter
Justice Blackmun argued that executing a person who is actually innocent is fundamentally unconstitutional under both the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and that the Constitution cannot tolerate such a result regardless of whether the original trial was procedurally perfect. He contended that the majority's reliance on executive clemency as the sole remedy was dangerously inadequate because clemency is discretionary and unreliable.
- The Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process must, at a minimum, forbid the government from executing a person who can demonstrate that he is actually innocent of the crime.
- Relegating innocent people on death row exclusively to the mercy of the executive clemency process, with no judicial review of their innocence claims, provides insufficient constitutional protection against the ultimate and irreversible punishment.
- The majority's assumption that a 'truly persuasive' showing of innocence might warrant relief, while simultaneously refusing to grant meaningful review, effectively renders that theoretical protection meaningless in practice.
- Herrera's newly discovered evidence — including affidavits identifying his deceased brother as the actual killer — deserved a full and fair judicial hearing rather than summary dismissal.
Background & Facts
On the night of September 29, 1981, two law enforcement officers were shot and killed in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Officer David Rucker of the Los Fresnos Police Department was found dead beside his patrol car, shot in the head. Shortly afterward, Enrique Carrisalez, an officer with the Brownsville Police Department, was fatally shot during a traffic stop. Carrisalez's partner, Officer Enrique Hernandez, survived and identified Leonel Torres Herrera as the shooter. Physical evidence also connected Herrera to both crimes: his car's license plate was found near Rucker's body, and blood consistent with the officers' blood types was found on items in Herrera's possession and inside his vehicle. Herrera was convicted of capital murder for the killing of Officer Carrisalez and sentenced to death. He separately pleaded guilty to the murder of Officer Rucker.
Nearly a decade after his conviction, Herrera sought a new round of federal habeas corpus relief. He presented several affidavits suggesting that his brother, Raul Herrera Sr., had actually committed the murders. One affidavit came from a former state court judge and attorney named Hector Villarreal, who claimed Raul had confessed the killings to him. Another came from Raul Herrera Jr., Raul's son, who claimed he had witnessed his father shoot the two officers. Critically, Raul Herrera Sr. himself had been killed in 1984, so he could not confirm or deny these claims. Herrera argued that this new evidence proved he was actually innocent and that executing an innocent man would violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.
Under Texas law at the time, a motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence had to be filed within thirty days of the imposition of sentence. This window had long since closed for Herrera. He filed a second federal habeas corpus petition in federal court, arguing that the newly discovered evidence of innocence itself constituted a constitutional claim entitling him to relief. The federal district court granted a stay of execution so Herrera could present his evidence, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated that stay, holding that a freestanding claim of actual innocence without any underlying constitutional violation in the trial proceedings was not a cognizable ground for federal habeas relief.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case because it raised a fundamental and unresolved question: whether the Constitution requires courts to entertain a claim of innocence, based purely on new evidence, even when the original trial was free of constitutional error. The question had enormous implications for the death penalty, habeas corpus law, and the relationship between the courts and the executive branch's clemency power.
The Arguments
Herrera argued that newly discovered evidence strongly suggested he was actually innocent of the murders for which he was sentenced to death. He contended that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid the execution of a person who is actually innocent, and that federal courts must be available to consider such claims through habeas corpus proceedings.
- Multiple affidavits, including one from an attorney and former judge and one from an eyewitness, pointed to Herrera's deceased brother as the actual killer of both officers.
- Executing an actually innocent person would constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment and a deprivation of life without due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Because the Texas time limit for filing a new-trial motion based on newly discovered evidence had expired, federal habeas corpus was the only judicial avenue left to prevent the execution of an innocent man.
Collins, the Director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, argued that a freestanding claim of actual innocence does not state a cognizable ground for federal habeas corpus relief. He maintained that habeas review exists to remedy constitutional violations in the trial process, not to relitigate factual guilt, and that the appropriate remedy for post-conviction claims of innocence is executive clemency.
- Federal habeas corpus relief requires a showing that the petitioner's custody violates the Constitution or federal law; a claim of innocence alone, without any constitutional defect in the trial, does not meet this standard.
- The adversarial trial process, with its extensive constitutional protections, is the mechanism our system uses to determine guilt or innocence, and once those protections have been properly afforded, the verdict should stand.
- Every state, including Texas, provides a clemency process through which a governor can pardon or commute the sentence of a person believed to be innocent, making clemency the historically appropriate safety valve for such claims.