In a 5-4 ruling on June 18, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a lower federal court ruling holding that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a convicted inmate the right to a DNA test on evidence that might prove his innocence. The defendant, William Osborne, had been convicted in 1994 of sexual assault in Alaska and sentenced to 26 years in prison. Alaska is one of only 4 states in the country that does not have a law providing for access to DNA evidence (the other 3 are Alabama, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma, though Alabama recently passed a law allowing limited access to DNA for death row inmates). Osborne was willing to pay for the test, which the state admitted might have conclusively proven his guilt or innocence.
While acknowledging the revolutionary importance of DNA testing in the criminal justice system, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, said that it would be better to allow states to develop their own procedures for utilizing this forensic tool. He wrote: "Federal courts should not presume that state criminal procedures will be inadequate to deal with technological change. The criminal justice system has historically accommodated new types of evidence, and is a time-tested means of carrying out society’s interest in convicting the guilty while respecting individual rights. That system, like any human endeavor, cannot be perfect. DNA evidence shows that it has not been. But there is no basis for Osborne’s approach of assuming that because DNA has shown that these procedures are not flawless, DNA evidence must be treated as categorically outside the process, rather than within it."
On November 16, the United States Supreme Court accepted for review and handed down a per curiam decision in Wong v. Belmontes (No. 08-1263). The Court reinstated Fernando Belmontes' death sentence and overturned the decision of the Ninth Circuit granting relief because of ineffectiveness of counsel. Belmontes was sentenced to death for murdering a woman during a robbery in 1981 in California. The appeals court ruled in 2008 that Belmontes' lawyer had represented him incompetently by neglecting to introduce evidence of family strife and depression that would have likely led to a different sentence. The Supreme Court assumed that the attorney should have presented more evidence but concluded it would not have made any difference in sentencing. Justice Stevens issued a concurring opinion stating that he believed the Supreme Court had erred in a previous consideration of this same case.
On October 13, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Holland v. Florida, a case raising the question of "whether 'gross negligence' by a state-appointed defense attorney in a death penalty case provides a basis for extending the time to file a federal habeas challenge, in a case where the habeas plea was filed late despite repeated instructions from the client." (scotusblog.com). In his petition for certiorari to the Court, the defendant stated, "Despite the State of Florida's promise to Petitioner that he have counsel to competently and effectively represent him in both his state and federal postconviction litigation, a promise that would be purportedly enforced by judicial monitoring, Petitioner's state collateral attorney, Mr. Collins, failed to timely file a (habeas corpus) §2254 petition on behalf of Petitioner." The defendant then filed his own petition for habeas corpus and, while admitting it was filed late, asked that the deadline be extended because of the serious error by his appointed attorney.
On August 17 the United States Supreme Court ordered a new evidentiary hearing for Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis, whose case has drawn worldwide attention because of new evidence of his possible innocence. For the first time in nearly 50 years, the Court has favorably responded to a petition directed to them, rather than as an appeal from other courts. With only two Justices writing in dissent, the Court ordered the lower federal court to hear Davis' evidence: "The District Court should receive testimony and make findings of fact as to whether evidence that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes petitioner’s innocence." 
On June 1, in the case of Bobby v. Bies, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Michael Bies had to bring his claim of mental retardation before a separate state hearing, thereby reversing the lower federal courts that held such a hearing would constitute double jeopardy. The Court held that Ohio could contest Bies' assertion that he is mentally retarded and that this does not subject Bies to double jeopardy, despite the fact that the Ohio Supreme Court in 1996 had recognized his mental retardation as a mitigating factor in upholding his original death sentence. The Court made clear that it intended the states to have the primary responsibility for implementing Atkins. (In 2002, the United States Supreme Court held in Atkins v. Virginia that the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution bars execution of mentally retarded offenders.). Justice Ginsburg wrote the opinion in Bies.
On April 28 by a vote of 7-2, the United States Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling and granted a new hearing to Tennessee death row inmate Gary Cone because the state had withheld evidence from the defense. During his trial in 1984, Cone, a Vietnam veteran, presented an insanity defense, arguing that psychosis induced by his drug use negated his guilt. While the prosecution denied any evidence of Cone’s drug use and referred to his defense as "baloney," police reports, FBI files and witness statements discovered in the district attorney’s files 10 years later confirmed Cone’s extensive drug problem. Cone petitioned state courts for a new trial in light of this new evidence, but his petitions were denied based on a ruling that he had already made a claim of withheld evidence on direct appeal and lost. Later, a federal District Court denied Cone’s habeas corpus petition on the basis that the matter had been adequately resolved under state procedural law and the federal court was thus barred from reviewing the merits of the claim. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed this decision and held that the new evidence, even if considered, would not have influenced the guilty verdict and was thus immaterial. 
On April 1, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Harbison v. Bell that federally appointed counsel can represent indigent capital clients in state clemency procedures. The case, which was argued before the Supreme Court in January 2009, asked whether a federal law that provides lawyers to indigent state death row inmates for parts of their appeal guarantees them the continuation of that representation through the state clemency process. The law says that such lawyers are to represent their clients in "all available post-conviction process," including "proceedings for executive or other clemency." Federal appeals courts had been divided over the interpretation of the law, with one side saying that the law applies only to federal clemency proceedings.