On 13 February 2016, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly on a hunting trip at the age of 79.

Shortly after his death, a quote of his began to make the rounds, purportedly excerpted from his opinion on a 1993 ruling, Herrera v. Collins. The issue in that case was whether an inmate could present new evidence to make a claim of habeas corpus, the ancient legal vehicle by which prisoners can seek relief from unlawful imprisonment.

Nine years after his conviction for shooting and killing two police officers, Herrera produced writs stating that he was innocent, and that his deceased brother had actually committed the murders. Herrera’s last-ditch effort failed, but his case was then used by the Supreme Court in order to decide whether any inmate could use claims of new evidence to argue that their imprisonment violated their Constitutional rights. In other words, a claim of innocence based on newly discovered evidence — according to this decision — didn’t provide grounds for habeas corpus relief.

Justice Scalia is often quoted as having commented on this decision (in part):

Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.

In this instance, what’s important is not exactly what he said, but what he meant.

However, Justice Scalia’s words regarding that decision are often quoted out of context, leaving readers with the mistaken impression that he believed it was perfectly acceptable for our legal system to execute people whom we knew to be innocent. In the fuller context, what he was actually expressing was that once a person had been fairly convicted and sentenced in court, and had exhausted all his possible avenues of appeal, a last-minute claim of innocence was not by itself sufficient grounds for further delaying the carrying out of the sentence.

Scalia concurred with the court’s 6-3 Herrera v. Collins decision that a claim of innocence should not serve as the sole grounds for habeas corpus relief, stating in his written opinion that sufficient legal relief already existed for people presenting new evidence of innocence (not that factual innocence was irrelevant) and that ruling otherwise would impose an unmanageable burden on lower courts to review newly discovered evidence: