Truth is irrelevant in the legal system.
Procedure is the "new God".
Whilst the maxim tells us "equity regards substance over form", the legal system flips this on its head and places form above all else.
In 1993 a death penalty case (Herrera v. Collins) Scalia wrote that a condemned man awaiting execution did not have a right to another trial even if new evidence showed he was actually innocent of the crime. Scalia reasoned that because the condemned man's original trial had been free from procedural error, he'd have to die anyway, guilty or not.
"There is no basis in text, tradition, or even in contemporary practice (if that were enough) for finding in the Constitution a right to demand judicial consideration of newly discovered evidence of innocence brought forward after conviction."
Justice Scalia said the man had no "right to demand." At that point, it was less expensive for the nation to save the man's life than to execute him. But Justice Scalia's decision was more a message to the nation than an exercise in justice: Justice Scalia is telling the nation and the world that in American justice, truth is unimportant in the face of procedure.
There you have it.
Succinct; clear and to the point.
It's so 'perfect', let's revisit it;
a condemned man [...] did not have a right to another trial even if new evidence showed he was actually innocent of the crime [...] because the condemned man's original trial had been free from procedural error, he'd have to die anyway, guilty or not.
Never let the Truth get in the way of a good story ...
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Oh what delicious irony ...