Editorial: Two wrongs make a wrong

Tuesday, June 19, 2007 | 6:57 a.m.

I n an astonishing ruling last week, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a man cannot challenge his murder conviction because the federal judge presiding over his case made a mistake and gave him the wrong date as a deadline for filing an appeal.

Keith Bowles, who is serving 15 years to life for murder, filed his appeal Feb. 26 - one day earlier than the Feb. 27 deadline the federal judge had given him. But the judge was mistaken. Feb. 27 exceeded the 14 days to file an appeal allowed under federal law. The correct deadline was Feb. 24.

In a 5-4 vote Thursday, the Supreme Court's conservative majority said Bowles was out of time and luck. His case, they said, did not fit the "unique circumstances" set by the Supreme Court during the 1960s. That doctrine allows the court to take into consideration circumstances under which judicial rules may not need to be enforced.

In rejecting Bowles' argument, the Supreme Court also overruled two precedents that had been used to establish the unique circumstances doctrine. In the opinion written for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said if such "rigorous rules" are "thought to be inequitable" then Congress could fix them.

But in the Supreme Court's dissenting opinion, Justice David H. Souter wrote that "it is intolerable for the judicial system to treat people this way, and there is not even a technical justification for condoning this bait and switch."

It is unbelievable that a person convicted of murder cannot appeal that decision because a federal judge made a mistake. If this is true, then judges can make all manner of errors, and those convicted under their jurisdictions could have no recourse.

This is not how a fair and impartial judicial system is supposed to work. Souter is correct. It is intolerable.