July 17, 2024 — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor cited a Houston Law Review article this month in the denial for a writ of certiorari in the case, McCrory v. Alabama, a “40-year-old conviction resting on science that has now been wholly discredited.”
Sotomayor stated the constitutional question McCrory raises “has not yet percolated sufficiently in the lower courts to merit this Court’s review.“
However, she urged state legislatures and Congress to address wrongful convictions based on outdated forensic science or repudiated testimony and cited the Houston Law Review article as an example of how legislative reforms in Texas and California have empowered courts to overturn wrongful convictions.
The SCOTUS citation reads as follows:
“These cases in Texas and California show how targeted legislative reform can allow courts to address convictions based on trial evidence that has been repudiated by the scientific community. Legislators enabled these courts explicitly to consider changes in forensic science on collateral review of criminal convictions. “The adoption of these changed science writs empowers courts in state habeas proceedings to reverse wrongful convictions, rather than be hindered by procedure.” V. Beety, Changed Science Writs and State Habeas Relief, 57 Hous. L. Rev. 483, 531 (2020). As a result, innocent people can attain freedom sooner.”
The Houston Law Review article, “Changed Science Writs and State Habeas Relief,” was published in Volume 57 and authored by Professor Valena E. Beety, now at Indiana University Maurer School of Law. The publication was part of a symposium organized by Sandra Guerra Thompson, the Newell H. Blakely Chair and Professor at the University of Houston Law Center, focusing on "The Future of Crime Labs and Forensic Science."
The Houston Law Review, founded in 1963, is a scholarly journal published by students at the University of Houston Law Center.
