## Facts

- Lloyd E. Schlup, a Missouri prisoner sentenced to death, was convicted of participating in the قتل of inmate Arthur Dade in a high-security area of the Missouri State Penitentiary on February 3, 1984.
- The prosecution’s case relied largely on two corrections officers’ testimony placing Schlup at the assault as another inmate attacked Dade and a third inmate stabbed him.
- Schlup later asserted that trial-related constitutional errors—ineffective assistance of counsel and suppression of exculpatory evidence—kept the jury from hearing evidence supporting innocence.
- In a second federal habeas petition, Schlup presented new innocence-related evidence, including inmate affidavits and videotape-related evidence, and sought merits review of otherwise barred constitutional claims.
- The federal district court and the Eighth Circuit declined merits review, treating the petition as successive/abusive and applying *Sawyer*’s “clear and convincing” actual-innocence standard.

## Issues

1. What actual-innocence standard applies when a death-sentenced prisoner asserts innocence as a gateway to obtain federal review of otherwise procedurally barred constitutional claims in a successive habeas petition?
2. Whether the *Sawyer v. Whitley* “clear and convincing evidence” standard governs such gateway claims, or whether the *Murray v. Carrier* probability standard governs.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court held that the *Murray v. Carrier* standard—not *Sawyer*—governs when actual innocence is asserted as a gateway to review otherwise barred constitutional claims.
- The Court explained that *Sawyer*’s stricter test is limited to claims of “actual innocence of the death penalty” (death-eligibility), not factual innocence of the underlying offense.
- The Court vacated the Eighth Circuit’s judgment and remanded for application of the correct gateway standard to Schlup’s petition.

## Legal Principles

- A petitioner using actual innocence as a gateway must show that “a constitutional violation has probably resulted in the conviction of one who is actually innocent.”
- The gateway inquiry asks whether, in light of new reliable evidence and the full trial record, it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
- “New” gateway evidence must be reliable (e.g., scientific evidence, trustworthy eyewitness accounts, or critical physical evidence) and is assessed cumulatively with the existing record.
- Freestanding innocence claims (innocence without asserted trial error) require a substantially higher showing than gateway innocence claims tied to alleged constitutional violations.
- Although successive petitions are generally constrained by finality, comity, and resource concerns, those interests yield in the narrow class of cases meeting the miscarriage-of-justice gateway standard.

## Conclusion

The Court ruled that a death-sentenced prisoner may overcome procedural barriers to federal habeas review by making a credible, probability-based showing that constitutional error likely produced the conviction of an actually innocent person, and it rejected applying *Sawyer*’s clear-and-convincing standard to such gateway claims.


Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298 (1995)