Justices Order New Trial in Rare Win for Death Row Inmate (3)

The US Supreme Court granted Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip a new trial in finding that misconduct by prosecutors violated his constitutional rights.

In a rare victory for a death row prisoner that saw two of the court’s conservatives join with its three liberals, the justices agreed with the state’s confession of error over prosecutorial lapses in the murder-for-hire case.

They threw out the conviction and said Glossip was entitled to a new trial. The state’s highest criminal court had rejected the confession and his request for a new trial.

In a twist, Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general had said the conviction could no longer stand because the prosecution withheld evidence favorable to the defense and failed to correct false testimony at trial.

Glossip was convicted in the 1997 beating death of his boss, Barry Van Treese. The appeal centered on claims prosecutors withheld evidence that undercut the credibility of the state’s star witness, Justin Sneed. It was Sneed who beat Van Treese to death with a baseball bat. But he claimed at trial that Glossip paid him to do it.

Documents handed over by the state years later showed that Sneed said he wanted to recant his testimony, was heavily coached by the prosecution to make his story match the evidence, and lied about seeing a psychiatrist, according to Glossip’s petitions for review.

Writing for the majority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the prosecution violated the Constitution when it failed to correct false testimony regarding his mental health and medication that might have factored into his behavior at the time of the killing.

“Had the prosecution corrected Sneed on the stand, his credibility plainly would have suffered,” Sotomayor wrote. “That correction would have revealed to the jury not just that Sneed was untrustworthy, but also that Sneed was willing to lie to them under oath.”

Sotomayor was joined by fellow liberals Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson and conservatives Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts. Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined part of the majority. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. Justice Neil Gorsuch didn’t participate in the case.

The 6-3 conservative court denies virtually all execution appeals, though the extraordinary confession from Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond may have prompted the justices to take a closer look at Glossip’s case.

A “great injustice has been swept away,” Drummond said in a statement following the Supreme Court’s ruling. “I have long maintained that I do not believe Mr. Glossip is innocent, but it is now an undeniable fact that he did not receive a fair trial,” he said.

Part Concurrence, Dissent

In siding with Glossip, the justices declined to send the case back to the state court to decide whether a new trial was necessary. “Because ample evidence supports the attorney general’s confession of error in this Court, there also is no need to remand for further evidentiary proceedings,” Sotomayor said.

Barrett concurred with the decision in part, and dissented in part. She wrote separately, saying she agreed with “much of the Court’s analysis,” but would’ve sent the case back to the state court to decide in the first instance whether there was in fact a Constitutional violation necessitating a new trial.

Thomas and Alito dissented in full.

The state court’s denial of a new trial “should have marked the end of the road for Glossip,” Thomas wrote. “Instead, the Court stretches the law at every turn to rule in his favor.”

Gorsuch recused because he sat in on a previous version while on the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Nine Times

The justices in 2023 put Glossip’s execution on hold while they considered his case. It was the ninth time his execution had been blocked, either by judges or state officials.

Glossip already knew too well uphill battles faced by capital defendants at the Supreme Court. He was the named plaintiff in a challenge brought by a group of Oklahoma death row inmates who challenged the state’s lethal injection procedure. A 5-4 court rejected their claims in its 2015 ruling Glossip v. Gross.

Glossip’s attorney, Don Knight, noted the gravity of the latest decision.

“We are thankful that a clear majority of the Court supports long-standing precedent that prosecutors cannot hide critical evidence from defense lawyers and cannot stand by while their witnesses knowingly lie to the jury,” Knight said in a statement. “Rich Glossip, who has maintained his innocence for 27 years, will now be given the chance to have the fair trial that he has always been denied.”

It’s not clear whether the state will retry Glossip again, and whether he will face the death penalty if so. Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna said in a statement that her office is reviewing the court’s opinion.

The case is Glossip v. Oklahoma, U.S., No. 22-7466.