In a 5-3 opinion, the justices overturned an Oklahoma Court of Criminals Appeals decision upholding Richard E. Glossip's 2004 conviction and death sentence related to the murder of Barry Van Treese at an Oklahoma hotel. The state appellate court improperly gave no weight to Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond's public admission of prosecutorial misconduct last year, the court's majority found.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the majority that newly discovered evidence shows that prosecutors violated Glossip's due process rights under the Supreme Court's 1959 decision in Napue v. Illinois by withholding information about the mental health and psychiatric treatment of their star witness, Justice Sneed, who testified that Glossip hired him to kill Van Treese. Had the prosecution corrected Sneed's false testimony at trial, the jury verdict may have well been different, Justice Sotomayor said.
"That correction would have revealed to the jury not just that Sneed was untrustworthy (as amicus points out, the jury already knew he repeatedly lied to the police), but also that Sneed was willing to lie to them under oath," she wrote. "Such a revelation would be significant in any case, and was especially so here where Sneed was already 'nobody's idea of a strong witness.'"
But Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett said the majority went too far in its ruling.
Justice Barrett, who partially dissented, said the majority only needed to correct the Oklahoma court's misstatement of federal law and remand the case for further proceedings.
Justices Thomas and Alito, who dissented from the majority's entire decision, contend the Supreme Court had no authority to review the Oklahoma court's ruling because it relied on the state's Post Conviction Procedure Act, which required Glossip to also prove that the newly discovered evidence couldn't have been found under normal due diligence or that he was actually innocent of the crime. They also argue the newly discovered evidence has nothing to do with the question of Glossip's guilt and wouldn't change the jury's verdict.
"Instead, the court stretches the law at every turn to rule in [Glossip's] favor," Justice Thomas wrote. "At the threshold, it concocts federal jurisdiction by misreading the decision below. On the merits, it finds a due process violation based on patently immaterial testimony about a witness's medical condition. And, for the remedy, it orders a new trial in violation of black-letter law on this court's power to review state-court judgments."
Justice Neil Gorsuch didn't participate in the decision.
Glossip's longtime attorney, Donald R. Knight, said in a statement Tuesday that the Supreme Court's decision finally gives his client, who has always maintained his innocence, a shot at a fair trial.
"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. "Today was a victory for justice and fairness in our judicial system."
WilmerHale's Seth P. Waxman, who argued Glossip's case in front of the Supreme Court, additionally told Law360 that he's "grateful for the care and attention" the justices gave Glossip's case.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who admitted in 2022 that reviews of Glossip's trial showed state prosecutors violated his due process rights and joined Glossip's push for a new trial, said he is considering his next steps. Drummond has consistently stated that, while he doesn't believe Glossip is innocent, he believes he isn't guilty of a death penalty-punishable crime either.
"I am pleased the high court has validated my grave concerns with how this prosecution was handled, and I am thankful we now have a fresh opportunity to see that justice is done," he said in a statement.
Glossip was twice convicted — in 1998 and 2004 — of orchestrating the January 1997 murder of Van Treese, the owner of an Oklahoma City motel where Glossip worked as a manager. The OCCA threw out his first conviction in 2001 after finding he had received ineffective assistance of counsel.
His 2004 conviction "hinged almost entirely" on the testimony of Sneed, a then-19-year-old handyman at the motel who confessed to beating and stabbing Van Treese to death in a guest room after Glossip offered to pay him for the murder.
New evidence in the case, including a handwritten note from former prosecutor Connie Smothermon, suggests that the state withheld information about Sneed's bipolar diagnosis and lithium prescription from Glossip's defense team. Smothermon is also accused of allowing Sneed to falsely testify that he didn't know why he was prescribed lithium.
Smothermon contested in a letter submitted as part of an amicus brief on behalf of the Van Treese family that her note instead reflects that Sneed told her he had been questioned by Glossip's defense about those two subjects. Justices Thomas and Alito accept her explanation, but the court's majority does not.
The information about Sneed's diagnosis, paired with his own admission to drug use, which can exacerbate bipolar symptoms, could've influenced the jury's perception of his testimony, Justice Sotomayor wrote.
"His diagnosis with a disorder that could trigger impulsive violence when combined with drug use thus would have undermined the prosecution's theory that Sneed was harmless on his own — a Rottweiler puppy beholden to his trainer," she said. "That theory was an important part of the prosecution's case and featured prominently in its opening and closing statements."
However, Justices Thomas, Alito and Barrett point to Smothermon's claims about the handwritten note as a reason not to order a new trial, but to order further proceedings below. The OCCA only decided the case on procedural grounds, they argue.
"In exercising our appellate function, it is not our role to find facts; instead, we review the factual findings of lower courts, subject to a deferential standard of appellate reviews," Justice Barrett wrote in a solo partial dissent. "This practice makes good sense. This court is well equipped to answer questions of federal law; it is ill equipped either to determine the credibility of witnesses or to master voluminous trial records."
Justice Thomas, who believes the majority placed too much emphasis on the impact of Sneed's testimony about his mental condition and lithium use, agreed. He noted that Glossip's own defense counsel, who at least knew about Sneed's bipolar diagnosis, didn't challenge the testimony at trial.
"As appellate judges examining a cold record 20 years after the trial, we should be wary of believing that we understand the import of evidence better than Glossip's counsel," he said.
Justice Sotomayor waved off these objections as requiring too much from the record. Drummond's confession of prosecutorial misconduct was well-founded in law, the majority said, and because the OCCA found otherwise, the only available next steps are to reverse that finding and order a new trial.
"This court has not required an evidentiary record free of doubt to find a Napue violation in any case, much less when an attorney general confesses that his own office erroneously obtained a capital conviction," Justice Sotomayor wrote.
Additional, distinct concerns, including Drummond's confession that Smothermon violated the rule of witness sequestration when she met with Sneed mid-trial to ensure his testimony matched that of the medical examiner, and destruction of certain pieces of evidence, also put Glossip's conviction into question, Justice Sotomayor said.
Glossip is represented by Seth P. Waxman, Catherine M.A. Carroll, Julia M. May, Zaki Anwar, Juan M. Ruiz Toro and Dylan S. Reighman of WilmerHale, Amy P. Knight, John R. Mills and Joseph J. Perkovich of Phillips Black Inc. and Donald R. Knight.
Oklahoma is represented by Paul D. Clement, Matthew D. Rowen, Joseph J. DeMott and Zachary J. Lustbader of Clement & Murphy PLLC and Gentner F. Drummond and Gary M. Gaskins II of the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office.
The judgment below was defended by Christopher G. Michel, Rachel C. Frank, Alex Van Dyke and Nicholas J. Caluda of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP.
The case is Glossip v. Oklahoma, case number 22-7466, in the Supreme Court of the United States.
--Editing by Alyssa Miller.
Update: This story has been updated with more details.
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