The Presiding Justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court, Oliver Diaz, dissented in a recent capital case, Doss v. Mississippi, stating he had come to the conclusion that the death penalty is unconstitutional:
[A]ll that remains to justify our system of capital punishment is the quest for revenge, and I cannot find, as a matter of law, that the thirst for vengeance is a legitimate state interest. Even if it is, capital punishment’s benefit over life imprisonment in society’s quest for revenge is so minimal that it cannot possibly justify the burden that it imposes in outright heinousness. The death penalty is, therefore, reduced to “the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes. A penalty with such negligible returns to the State [is] patently excessive and cruel and unusual punishment violative of the Eighth Amendment.” (quoting Justice White in Furman v. Georgia).
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta heard arguments in the Troy Davis case on December 9. The judges weighed whether Davis' new evidence was sufficient to merit a more extensive hearing and perhaps a new trial. One of the judges, Rosemary Barkett, said she would like to see the innocence claims fleshed out in a further hearing.
