Supreme Court docket orders new trial for Oklahoma loss of life row inmate Richard Glossip

Washington — The Supreme Court docket on Tuesday ordered a brand new trial for Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma loss of life row inmate who was joined in his bid to have his conviction thrown out by the state’s Republican legal professional basic.

The excessive courtroom dominated 5-3 in favor of Glossip and reversed a call of the Oklahoma Court docket of Felony Appeals that upheld his conviction and loss of life sentence. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion for the courtroom and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Neil Gorsuch didn’t participate within the courtroom’s consideration of the case.

After first discovering that the excessive courtroom has jurisdiction to evaluate the Oklahoma courtroom’s determination, Sotomayor wrote that the prosecution’s failure to right testimony of their key witness throughout the trial violated Glossip’s proper to due course of, entitling him to a brand new trial.

“Turning to the deserves, we conclude that the prosecution violated its constitutional obligation to right false testimony,” she wrote.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed with the bulk’s discovering as to the Supreme Court docket’s jurisdiction, however stated she wouldn’t order the Oklahoma Court docket of Felony Appeals to put aside Glossip’s conviction. As a substitute, she stated would have despatched the case again for extra proceedings.

In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the Supreme Court docket lacks the facility to override the choices of the Oklahoma Court docket of Felony Appeals and the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, which declined to grant Glossip clemency in 2023.

“The courtroom’s determination distorts our jurisdiction, imagines a constitutional violation the place none occurred, and abandons fundamental ideas governing the disposition of state-court appeals,” Thomas wrote in a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Samuel Alito.

Gentner Drummond, Oklahoma’s legal professional basic, stated his workplace will evaluate the choice and decide the suitable plan of action.

“Our justice system is drastically diminished when a person is convicted with no honest trial, however in the present day we are able to rejoice that an important injustice has been swept away,” Drummond stated in a press release. “I’m happy the excessive courtroom has validated my grave considerations with how this prosecution was dealt with, and I’m grateful we now have a contemporary alternative to see that justice is completed.”

He continued: “I’m grateful the justices understood the gravity of the scenario. I’ve lengthy maintained that I don’t consider Mr. Glossip is harmless, however it’s now an indisputable fact that he didn’t obtain a good trial.”

The Glossip case

Glossip was convicted within the 1997 homicide of the proprietor of the Oklahoma Metropolis motel the place he labored and was sentenced to loss of life greater than twenty years in the past. Since then, he has seen 9 execution dates come and go, and eaten his “final meal” thrice.

Glossip had additionally been earlier than the Supreme Court docket as soon as earlier than, in 2015, when he unsuccessfully challenged Oklahoma’s technique of execution on Eighth Modification grounds.

Within the newest problem, his bid to toss out his conviction and grant him a brand new trial was backed by Oklahoma’s Republican legal professional basic, Drummond, due to errors dedicated throughout his earlier trial.

A central difficulty within the courtroom combat concerned the testimony of Glossip’s co-defendant, Justin Sneed, who claimed Glossip paid him $10,000 to kill Barry Van Treese, the motel proprietor.

Sneed admitted to robbing and bludgeoning Van Treese and is serving a sentence of life in jail. Glossip, in the meantime, has stated he was not concerned within the homicide and repeatedly maintained his innocence over his roughly 25 years on loss of life row.

Glossip’s first conviction was overturned due to ineffective help of counsel. Throughout his second trial, Sneed advised prosecutors that he had by no means seen a psychiatrist, however was given lithium after he was arrested. However in 2022, the state discovered prosecutors’ handwritten notes in a banker’s field, which Drummond stated known as into query Sneed’s credibility as a witness.

Attorneys for Glossip and Drummond argued the notes confirmed that Sneed advised prosecutors he was given lithium after seeing a jailhouse psychiatrist and was identified with bipolar dysfunction. However neither his analysis nor his remedy by the psychiatrist have been disclosed to Glossip’s protection group, which Drummond stated indicated prosecutors elicited false testimony on the matter.

Following the revelations, Oklahoma’s legal professional basic disclosed the field’s supplies to Glossip and had an unbiased counsel evaluate the case. That examination, carried out by former district legal professional Rex Duncan, resulted in April 2023 and concluded that Glossip was disadvantaged of a good trial.

The state requested the Oklahoma Court docket of Felony Appeals to toss out Glossip’s conviction and sentence, arguing that the errors dedicated throughout the trial rendered each flaws. However the courtroom denied aid and ordered the state to maneuver ahead with executing Glossip. A request for clemency to the Oklahoma Parole and Pardon Board, which Drummond supported, was additionally unsuccessful after it deadlocked 2-2. 

Glossip and Drummond then urged the Supreme Court docket to step in. The courtroom in Could 2023 agreed to pause his execution and months later agreed to listen to his case. Gorsuch didn’t take part within the proceedings, possible due to earlier involvement when he was a decide on the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the tenth Circuit, which covers Oklahoma.

Arguments within the case came about in early October in the beginning of the Supreme Court docket’s new time period. Lots of the questions centered on the interpretation of prosecutors’ notes, in addition to how the jury’s view of the case would have been impacted had they recognized Sneed was prescribed lithium by a psychiatrist after his arrest.

Writing for almost all, Sotomayor stated the jury’s evaluation of Sneed’s credibility was determinative.

“Had the prosecution corrected Sneed on the stand, his credibility plainly would have suffered,” she wrote. “That correction would have revealed to the jury not simply that Sneed was untrustworthy … but additionally that Sneed was prepared to misinform them underneath oath. Such a revelation could be important in any case, and was particularly so right here the place Sneed was already ‘no one’s thought of a robust witness.'”

The courtroom discovered that regardless that Sneed’s bipolar dysfunction was irrelevant, “his willingness to lie about it to the jury was not.”

However writing in dissent, Thomas accused nearly all of “having bent the legislation at each flip to grant aid” to Glossip, and stated the courtroom had no authority to order a brand new trial. 

As to Sneed’s credibility, Thomas wrote that “there isn’t a motive to suppose” that disclosing his bipolar dysfunction would have affected the result of the trial.

“The courtroom stretches the legislation at each flip to rule in [Glossip’s] favor,” Thomas wrote. “On the threshold, it concocts federal jurisdiction by misreading the choice under. On the deserves, it finds a due course of violation based mostly on patently immaterial testimony a couple of witness’s medical situation. And, for the treatment, it orders a brand new trial in violation of black-letter legislation on this Court docket’s energy to evaluate state-court judgments.”