The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave an Oklahoma death row inmate a new chance to prove his innocence, siding with both his lawyers and the state who said Richard Glossip did not get a fair trial in his 1997 murder-for-hire case.
In a rare move for a prosecutor, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond concluded trial attorneys hid evidence that might have led to an acquittal. But the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals last year said Drummond’s request to set aside Glossip’s conviction was not sufficient reason to halt his execution, prompting an appeal to the Supreme Court.
A majority of the court sided with Glossip, saying the prosecution violated its constitutional obligation to correct false testimony.
Writing for the majority, Justice Sonya Sotomayor said there is a reasonable likelihood that correcting the testimony would have affected the jury’s judgement.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.
Thomas wrote that court didn’t have the authority to review the decision by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. And even if it did, he said, the testimony in dispute was “patently immaterial.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed with some, but not all, of the majority’s conclusions. She said she would have directed the state court to reconsider how it reviewed Glossip’s case rather than ordering the court to set aside his conviction.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was involved at an earlier stage of the case when he was an appeals court judge, recused himself from the deliberations.
Glossip’s attorney called the decision “a victory for justice and fairness in our judicial system.”
“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.”