At Supreme Court docket arguments Wednesday, it was not clear that there have been 5 votes for a brand new trial for a person who has spent 25 years on demise row. It might be that his probability to keep away from execution is within the fingers of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Photographs/Getty Photographs North America
cover caption
toggle caption
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Photographs/Getty Photographs North America
The U.S. Supreme Court docket heard arguments Wednesday in a outstanding true-crime drama that pits Oklahoma’s lawyer basic towards the state’s highest court docket for prison appeals. At concern is whether or not the state court docket wrongly refused to just accept the lawyer basic’s findings that Richard Glossip, a demise row inmate, is entitled to a brand new trial.
Glossip has been on demise row for greater than 25 years. In that point, he has been tried and convicted twice and has misplaced a number of appeals, together with one on the Supreme Court docket. The one witness to straight tie Glossip to the homicide of motel proprietor Barry Van Treese was Justin Sneed, a handyman on the motel the place Glossip was the supervisor. Sneed confessed to murdering Van Treese and, in change for testifying towards Glossip, obtained life in jail as a substitute of the demise penalty.
Prosecutors by no means claimed Glossip had really participated within the homicide itself. They stated he had organized it to both keep away from being fired, or in a distinct concept of the crime on the second trial, to steal cash from Van Treese. However in 2023, one yr after a big bipartisan group of state legislators had commissioned an outdoor regulation agency to research the Glossip case, Oklahoma Legal professional Basic Gentner Drummond commissioned a second impartial investigation. The next particular counsel report discovered, as the sooner investigation did, that Glossip had been denied a good trial.
Drummond, a Republican and demise penalty supporter, then took a uncommon step. He requested the state Court docket of Felony Appeals to order a brand new trial as a result of he stated that Glossip had been convicted with proof tainted by prosecutorial misconduct. Particularly, that prosecutors had hidden proof useful to the protection, and elicited what they knew was false testimony from Sneed at trial. He didn’t keep that Glossip was harmless, simply that he was entitled to a brand new trial. Certainly, as lawyer Paul Clement, representing the state of Oklahoma, made clear on the Supreme Court docket Wednesday, Drummond expects Glossip to be convicted, however not of a capital crime.
The Oklahoma Court docket of Felony Appeals, nevertheless, refused Drummond’s request for a brand new trial, and the lawyer basic appealed to the Supreme Court docket, contending that the appeals court docket ruling must be reversed.
Clement instructed the justices that Drummond’s formal confession that the trial had been unfair “demanded respect” however as a substitute the state court docket “essentially treated the confession of error as unfounded.”
The place the justices stood
At arguments on Wednesday, it was not clear that there have been 5 justices who would vote for a brand new trial. Certainly, It might be that Glossip’s probability to keep away from execution is within the fingers of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, or Justice Amy Coney Barrett, or each.
Chief Justice John Roberts, echoing the Oklahoma court docket’s place, requested whether or not “it would make that much of a difference to a jury” that they didn’t know the star witness was affected by bipolar dysfunction and was being handled by a psychiatrist with lithium.
Justice Kavanaugh appeared troubled nonetheless, positing that if the jury knew that not solely did Sneed “have an incentive to lie, but he’s lied on the stand and he’s bipolar,” that might create “all sorts of avenues to question [Sneed’s] credibility.”
Justice Barrett centered largely on procedural considerations, noting that for Oklahoma’s highest prison court docket it “is unusual not to accept: the attorney general’s request for a new trial.
Justice Clarence Thomas had an entirely different view, focusing not on Justin Sneed, the star witness, but instead on whether the prosecutors in Glossip’s second trial had been unfairly maligned. He repeatedly asked the two lawyers seeking a new trial if they had interviewed the prosecutors. Clement and Glossip’s lawyer Seth Waxman, both replied that the prosecutors had been interviewed by two independent counsels, and that the prosecutors themselves had submitted “unsworn statements” for a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the victim’s family in the Supreme Court.
Justice Samuel Alito, perhaps the court’s most vocal supporter of the death penalty, made clear his displeasure that the Glossip case was back at the high court yet again.
In distinction, the court docket’s liberals had been brazenly appalled. Justice Sonia Sotomayor famous that the prosecutors knew their star witness had lied, and did nothing to right the lie, as required by a number of Supreme Court docket rulings.
Justice Elena Kagan was much more blunt. “In a case where the entire case rested on the testimony of one person… your one witness has just been exposed as a liar,” she stated pointedly. These lies are significantly necessary, she stated, as a result of “the critical question the jury is asking is ‘Do I believe this guy and do I believe him when he’s pointed the finger at the accused.'”
Justice Gorsuch’s recusal
Counting the votes in Wednesday’s case is especially difficult as a result of Justice Neil Gorsuch is recused; he was on the Tenth Circuit Court docket of Appeals throughout one among Glossip’s earlier appeals. Meaning there are solely eight justices voting within the case, and a 4-4 tie would imply that the Oklahoma Felony Court docket of Appeals ruling could be upheld, and Glossip would as soon as once more be headed for execution.
At Wednesday’s argument, Christopher Michel, the lawyer appointed to symbolize the Oklahoma court docket, instructed the justices that in that occasion, Glossip can search clemency from the state Pardon and Parole Board. The final time Glossip appealed to the board for clemency, it was deadlocked 2-to-2, as a result of the fifth member had a battle of curiosity. His spouse was the lead prosecutor within the second Glossip trial.
On Wednesday, lawyer Michel assured the court docket that there are new members of the board, so all 5 may take part, avoiding a repeat of the impasse.
