High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Holmes v. South Carolina, 547 U.S. 319 (2006), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court involving the right of a criminal defendant to present evidence that a third party instead committed the crime. The Court vacated the rape and murder conviction in South Carolina of a man who had been denied the opportunity to present evidence of a third party`s guilt, because the trial court believed the prosecutor`s forensic evidence was too strong for the defendant`s evidence to raise an inference of innocence. The Court ruled unanimously that this exclusion violated the right of a defendant to have a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense, because the strength of a prosecutor`s case had no logical relationship to whether a defendant`s evidence was too weak to be admissible.