424
O'Connor, J., concurring
brother for both the Rucker and Carrisalez homicides—even though petitioner pleaded guilty to murdering Rucker and contested only the Carrisalez slaying.
Most critical of all, however, the affidavits pale when compared to the proof at trial. While some bits of circumstantial evidence can be explained, petitioner offers no plausible excuse for the most damaging piece of evidence, the signed letter in which petitioner confessed and offered to turn himself in. One could hardly ask for more unimpeachable—or more unimpeached—evidence of guilt.
The conclusion seems inescapable: Petitioner is guilty. The dissent does not contend otherwise. Instead, it urges us to defer to the District Court's determination that petitioner's evidence was not "so insubstantial that it could be dismissed without any hearing at all." Post, at 444. I do not read the District Court's decision as making any such determination. Nowhere in its opinion did the District Court question the accuracy of the jury's verdict. Nor did it pass on the sufficiency of the affidavits. The District Court did not even suggest that it wished to hold an evidentiary hearing on petitioner's actual innocence claims. Indeed, the District Court apparently believed that a hearing would be futile because the court could offer no relief in any event. As the court explained, claims of "newly discovered evidence bearing directly upon guilt or innocence" are not cognizable on habeas corpus "unless the petition implicates a constitutional violation." App. 38.
As the dissent admits, post, at 444, the District Court had an altogether different reason for entering a stay of execution. It believed, from a "sense of fairness and due process," App. 38, that petitioner should have the chance to present his affidavits to the state courts. Id., at 38-39; ante, at 397. But the District Court did not hold that the state courts should hold a hearing either; it instead ordered the habeas petition dismissed and the stay lifted once the state court action was filed, without further condition. App. 39. As
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