Cite as: 513 U. S. 298 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner Lloyd E. Schlup, Jr., a Missouri prisoner currently under a sentence of death, filed a second federal habeas corpus petition alleging that constitutional error deprived the jury of critical evidence that would have established his innocence. The District Court, without conducting an evidentiary hearing, declined to reach the merits of the petition, holding that petitioner could not satisfy the threshold showing of "actual innocence" required by Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U. S. 333 (1992). Under Sawyer, the petitioner must show "by clear and convincing evidence that, but for a constitutional error, no reasonable juror would have found the petitioner" guilty. Id., at 336. The Court of Appeals affirmed. We granted certiorari to consider whether the Sawyer standard provides adequate protection against the kind of miscarriage of justice that would result from the execution of a person who is actually innocent.
I
On February 3, 1984, on Walk 1 of the high security area of the Missouri State Penitentiary, a black inmate named Arthur Dade was stabbed to death. Three white inmates from
Stenberg, Attorney General of Nebraska, Frankie Sue Del Papa, Attorney General of Nevada, Deborah T. Poritz, Attorney General of New Jersey, Tom Udall, Attorney General of New Mexico, Michael F. Easley, Attorney General of North Carolina, Lee Fisher, Attorney General of Ohio, Susan B. Loving, Attorney General of Oklahoma, Ernest D. Preate, Jr., Attorney General of Pennsylvania, T. Travis Medlock, Attorney General of South Carolina, Mark Barnett, Attorney General of South Dakota, Charles W. Burson, Attorney General of Tennessee, Dan Morales, Attorney General of Texas, Jan Graham, Attorney General of Utah, James S. Gilmore III, Attorney General of Virginia, and Joseph B. Meyer, Attorney General of Wyoming; and for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation by Kent S. Scheidegger and Charles L. Hobson.
Harold R. Tyler, Jr., and Eric M. Freedman filed a brief of amici curiae for Five Innocent Former Death Row Inmates et al.
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