A new supreme court ruling limits the legal challenges defendants can make if they were represented by a terrible public defender. And there's a guy on death row right now who might getx as a result. Barry lee jones was sentenced to death for killing a four year old girl. But just a few years ago, a judge tossed out the verdict and ordered a re trial because of a shoddy defence. Today's ruling means that re trial won't happen. It says innocence isn't necessarily enough to exonerate someone who could have been wrongly convicted - even if that person might die.
The Supreme Court is going to let Arizona kill Barry Jones, a man whose rape and murder convictions were vacated in 2018.
This episode was produced by Hady Mawajdeh, fact-checked by Laura Bullard and Tori Dominguez, engineered by Efim Shapiro, and edited by Matt Collette and Sean Rameswaram, who also hosted.
Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained
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