Supreme Court orders new trial for Oklahoma death row inmate

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with an Oklahoma death row inmate who claimed alongside the state itself that his trial was unfair, ordering a new trial and staving off his execution.

Convicted for the 1997 killing of his former boss, Richard Glossip has maintained his innocence for nearly three decades. State prosecutors said he orchestrated a murder-for-hire plot and paid a maintenance worker, Justin Sneed, to commit the killing. 

But Glossip alleged the state denied him due process by withholding evidence from the defense and knowingly letting the jury hear false testimony from Sneed, a key witness. The state itself emerged as an unlikely ally to Glossip during his appeal, admitting the inmate received an “unfair and unreliable trial.”  

The justices agreed Glossip’s trial was unfair, granting him a new one and, in the meantime, throwing out his death sentence. He’s been set for execution nine times — but each time avoided that fate.

The decision marks a rare victory for a death row inmate at the high court, which typically does not intervene in such cases.

“We conclude that the prosecution’s failure to correct Sneed’s trial testimony violated the Due Process Clause,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the majority. “Glossip is entitled to a new trial.” 

Sotomayor’s majority opinion was joined by four other justices. Justice Amy Coney Barrett concurred in part and dissented in part. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, and Justice Samuel Alito joined. And Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the case, likely because he participated in one of Glossip’s earlier appeals while serving on a lower court. 

Thomas noted in his dissenting opinion that Glossip was twice sentenced to death by Oklahoma juries and failed to persuade either body “with authority” to eliminate his death sentence: the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) and the state’s Pardon and Parole Board. 

He argued that his fellow justices’ directive for a new trial violates “black-letter law” on the high court’s ability to review state court judgments.

“Because this Court lacks the power to override these denials, that 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.”

Barrett agreed that Glossip’s due process rights were violated but said she would have sent the case back to OCCA for further consideration, contending that the high court drew its own conclusions about the record — a task she thinks is the lower court’s — and exceeded its role. 

During oral arguments in the fall, cracks of division emerged between the justices regarding the importance of new evidence, and jurisdiction the high court had to hear the appeal.  

In 2022, Oklahoma disclosed evidence revealing Sneed lied to the jury about being prescribed lithium to treat previously undiagnosed bipolar disorder, which state prosecutors knowingly left uncorrected.

Seth Waxman, former U.S. solicitor general under former President Clinton who is representing Glossip, argued the conviction fell apart then and there, asserting the death row inmate was convicted on the “word of one man.”

Paul Clement, former U.S. solicitor general under former President George W. Bush who represented Oklahoma, said the findings in the report commissioned by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond (R) revealed an obligation to admit the office had erred.

Justice Elena Kagan said plainly that Sneed “lied on the stand.”  

But Alito and Thomas questioned whether the new evidence was important or even accurate, with Thomas suggesting the Oklahoma prosecutors weren’t given adequate opportunity to explain and Alito purporting the notes revealing the state’s awareness of Sneed’s condition were too “cryptic.” 

On jurisdiction, Sotomayor sparred with lawyer Christopher Michel, appointed to make the argument that Glossip’s conviction should stand and the execution go forward. Sotomayor suggested Michel had “already lost” on his argument that the case should be thrown out over jurisdiction, drawing a pointed glare from Chief Justice John Roberts and chuckles from other justices.

Glossip’s case previously reached the Supreme Court in 2015, when he and two other Oklahoma death row inmates challenged the state’s lethal injection protocol.

They argued that the state’s use of midazolam, a sedative, violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment because it doesn’t entirely block the effects of two other drugs injected to cause death.

The justices narrowly ruled against the inmates 5-4, writing that the inmates failed to identify a less painful alternative and that states could continue using the drug.

Scores of states, civil liberties groups and current and former state and federal prosecutors filed amicus briefs in support of Glossip’s latest appeal, though the family of his former boss, Barry Van Treese, strongly opposed the derailment of his execution.

Don Knight, an attorney for Glossip, said in a statement that the Supreme Court’s decision means Glossip, who has maintained his innocence for nearly three decades, will be given a chance at the “fair trial that he has always been denied.”

“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.”

Updated at 11:54 a.m. EST