- Well, believe it or not, Mary, this is his 10th state post-conviction motion and he's lost the previous nine.

In short, I think it's because the criminal justice system values finality, sometimes at the expense of accuracy, the idea that cases have to grind to a halt at some point for everyone's sake, at least that's the philosophy behind it.

And this concept of finality means that once you're convicted, the presumption of innocence disappears.

It's replaced by a presumption of guilt that hardens over time, and this obsession with finality I think is manifested in a number of procedural obstacles.

We're talking about short time periods, statutes of limitations, for filing new evidence claims.

We're talking about stringent visions about what types of claims you can raise at all.

We're talking about deferential standards of review that say that you have to defer, give a lot of weight to earlier decisions by trial judges.

This obsession with finality makes it increasingly difficult to overturn wrongful convictions.