Although SCOTUS's opinion in the Anna Nicole Smith case will likely get most of the press attention today (the court unanimously ruled in her favor), more significant for court watchers is the fact that Justice Samuel Alito wrote his first opinion. Alito writes for a unanimous court in
Holmes v. South Carolina, coming to a "liberal" result, reversing a criminal conviction.
The issue in the case was simple--South Carolina has a rule of evidence in criminal trials that bars a defendant from introducing proof of another's guilt for the crime where the prosecution has introduced forensic evidence that "strongly supports" a guilty verdict. This rule was deemed unacceptable.
The forensic evidence in question were Holmes' handprints and DNA and fibers arguably connected to Holmes which were located at the scene of a rape and murder. Holmes' attorneys sought to introduce evidence which suggested that another person had confessed to committing the crime on the street, but the police refused to pursue him, which was excluded under the South Carolina rule.
Alito finds that while a court may (in accordance with the standard rules of evidence) regulate a defendant's ability to introduce evidence of third-party guilt, the rule in this case (as broadly applied by the South Carolina Supreme Court), was unacceptable because:
"Just because the prosecution's evidence, if credited, would provide strong support for a guilty verdict, it does not follow that evidence of third-party guilt has only a weak logical connection to the central issues in the case. And where the credibility of the prosecution's witnesses or the reliability of its evidence is not conceded, the strength of the prosecution's case cannot be assessed without making the sort of factual findings that have traditionally been reserved for the trier of fact."
Not only does the opinion come to the right result, it's cleanly and crisply written, well-reasoned, and contains a clear discussion of precedent. I may not always agree with Justice Alito. Indeed, I am sure there are times I will vehemently disagree with him. But this opinion is certainly a promising first step.