Blackmun argued that the majority's concern with a new trial being less reliable than the original trial missed the point. The question was not whether a new trial would be more reliable than the first trial; it was whether, in light of the new evidence, the first trial was sufficiently reliable to allow the State to execute Herrera. Blackmun would have held that in order to be entitled to relief, a death-sentenced inmate should have to be able to demonstrate that he is probably actually innocent; Blackmun distinguished this from the lower standard of probable reasonable doubt, which is applied to procedural default issues.