The Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip’s murder conviction because a key witness lied in court and prosecutors withheld information about him.
The decision, a rare victory for a death row inmate at the conservative court, means prosecutors now have to decide whether to put Glossip on trial again. The court was divided 5-3 on throwing out Glossip's conviction, with conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch not participating.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the court, said the prosecution "violated its constitutional obligation to correct false testimony." As a result, "Glossip is entitled to a new trial," she wrote.
Glossip, 62, was convicted of arranging the murder in 1997 of his boss at the Oklahoma City motel where they worked.
He has been on death row since 1998 and has faced imminent execution on several occasions.
Glossip's latest appeal received a major boost when the state attorney general, Republican Gentner Drummond, agreed that the conviction was unsound and asked the court to rule in his favor.
The conviction relied largely on the testimony of key witness Justin Sneed, who carried out the 1997 murder. Sneed, who pleaded guilty and avoided a death sentence, testified that Glossip had hired him to kill motel owner Barry Van Treese.
The appeal revolved around claims that prosecutors withheld information about Sneed and that he gave false testimony at trial. Prosecutors knew but did not disclose at Glossip’s second trial in 2004 that Sneed had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed lithium after his arrest.
Sneed also falsely testified that he had never seen a psychiatrist.
After an investigation, Drummond concluded that because Glossip’s conviction rested significantly on Sneed’s credibility, it should not be sustained.
The state has stopped short of agreeing with Glossip’s claim that he is innocent.
The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority that rarely intervenes to prevent executions from taking place, but occasionally steps in when there has been a clear miscarriage of justice.
Despite Drummond’s findings, an Oklahoma appeals court upheld the death sentence last year, and the state’s pardon and parole board voted against granting Glossip clemency.
The original prosecutors who had worked on the case, Connie Smothermon and Gary Ackley, disputed Drummond's account and said they had not been properly consulted during the investigation.
They wrote a letter questioning the new findings that was attached to an amicus brief filed by relatives of Van Treese that urged the court to uphold Glossip’s conviction.
The Supreme Court previously signaled an interest in Glossip’s case in May 2023 by stepping in to prevent him from being executed. The court also blocked Glossip’s execution in 2015 in separate litigation over the state’s lethal injection procedure.
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