Published: 08 April 2016
At the very end of the hearing, there was an important exchange that might have gone unnoticed by a person focusing only on Lorinda's future, but which represents a titanic shift in how Michigan law might some day be interpreted. Justice Markman asked Moran a broader question about the argument of innocence being in the background of these hypothetical and theoretic discussions about 'what is a Brady violation?' and 'does this meet the Cress standard?'. In an informed, articulate and confident tone, Moran states,
I certainly accept and promote the idea that there is a background principle that actual innocence matters. And that actual innocence should inform the way this court interprets these various provisions, just as the Federal Courts do, in the habeas analogy, that actual innocence gets you past procedural problems of all sorts, the statute of limitations, procedural default, that you otherwise could not get through without a strong showing of actual innocence.
What the average person on the street thinks every time they hear about such a case is this: "If the person is truly innocence, why should procedure get in the way? If a person is truly innocent, is justice done when the person is kept in prison for the rest of their life? Yes, we need the law, but whatever happened to justice, mercy and Truth?"