U.S. Supreme Court Rules Prosecutors Violated Ethical Responsibilities in Richard Glossip’s Case, Orders a New Trial

In a 5 – 3 deci­sion issued in Glossip v. Oklahoma on February 25, 2025, the United States Supreme Court threw out Richard Glossip’s 2004 con­vic­tion for arrang­ing the mur­der of Barry Von Treese and ordered a new tri­al because pros­e­cu­tors allowed a key wit­ness to lie in court and with­held cru­cial infor­ma­tion about the same wit­ness. Justice Sonya Sotomayor, writ­ing for the major­i­ty, said that pros­e­cu­tors in Mr. Glossip’s case ​“vio­lat­ed [their] con­sti­tu­tion­al oblig­a­tion to cor­rect false tes­ti­mo­ny,” and thus, he ​“is enti­tled to a new tri­al.” Justice Sotomayor was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Amy Coney Barrett con­curred in part with the major­i­ty, while Justice Gorsuch did not take part in the case’s consideration. 

The Court was asked to deter­mine whether the prosecution’s deci­sion to sup­press mate­r­i­al infor­ma­tion about their star wit­ness — Justin Sneed, who actu­al­ly com­mit­ted the mur­der — and per­mit him to false­ly tes­ti­fy in exchange for a plea deal that spared him from the death penal­ty vio­lat­ed due process. Oklahoma AG Gentner Drummond already answered this ques­tion in the affir­ma­tive, con­fess­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al error and sup­port­ing Mr. Glossip’s request for a new tri­al. Today the Supreme Court agreed. Justice Sotomayor wrote that ​“had the pros­e­cu­tion cor­rect­ed Sneed on the stand, his cred­i­bil­i­ty plain­ly would have suf­fered. The cor­rec­tion would have revealed to the jury not just that Sneed was untrust­wor­thy (as ami­cus points out, the jury already knew he lied to the police), but also that Sneed was will­ing to lie to them under oath.” She added that ​“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.’”

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. Today was a vic­to­ry for jus­tice and fair­ness in our judi­cial sys­tem. 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.

— Don Knight, attor­ney for Richard Glossip.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed in part with the majority’s find­ings of the Supreme Court’s juris­dic­tion but would not have ordered the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) to set aside Mr. Glossip’s con­vic­tion for a new tri­al. Rather, Justice Barrett said that the Court ​“should have cor­rect­ed the OCCA’s mis­state­ment of fed­er­al law and vacat­ed the judg­ment,” allow­ing the OCCA to deter­mine whether or not an evi­den­tiary hear­ing is war­rant­ed. In a dis­sent authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito and par­tial­ly by Justice Barrett, he wrote that the Court ​“has stretched the law at every turn to rule in [Glossip’s] favor” and that the ​“deci­sion dis­torts [the Court’s] juris­dic­tion, imag­ines a con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tion where none occurred, and aban­dons basic prin­ci­ples gov­ern­ing the dis­po­si­tion of state-court appeals.”

In March 2023, AG Drummond and coun­sel for Mr. Glossip joint­ly request­ed a stay of his exe­cu­tion, with the AG formally admit­ting error in the case and ask­ing the court to vacate Mr. Glossip’s con­vic­tion because of ​“mate­r­i­al mis­state­ments” made by Mr. Sneed. After the OCCA denied these requests, Mr. Glossip’s attor­neys appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where AG Drummond (through for­mer Solicitor General Paul Clement) sup­port­ed the stay, argu­ing that pro­ceed­ing with an exe­cu­tion where the state admit­ted error would be ​“unthink­able.” Mr. Glossip’s attor­neys then filed a peti­tion cit­ing due process vio­la­tions under Brady v. Maryland and Napue v. Illinois, claim­ing pros­e­cu­tors know­ing­ly sup­pressed evi­dence about Mr. Sneed’s psy­chi­atric care and failed to cor­rect false tes­ti­mo­ny. The Supreme Court grant­ed Mr. Glossip a stay of exe­cu­tion on May 5, 2023.

RELATED | Supreme Court orders new trial for Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip

An inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion car­ried out by the law firm Reed Smith pre­vi­ous­ly found that Mr. Sneed dis­cussed recant­i­ng his tes­ti­mo­ny over the course of a decade, both before and after Mr. Glossip’s 2004 con­vic­tion. A hand­writ­ten note from Mr. Sneed to his attor­neys, states, ​“Do I have the choice of recant­i­ng at any time dur­ing my life?” An addi­tion­al hand­writ­ten note indi­cates that Mr. Sneed believed his tes­ti­mo­ny to be ​“a mis­take.” These notes were nev­er giv­en to Mr. Glossip’s defense team. Reed Smith’s inves­ti­ga­tion also includ­ed doc­u­men­ta­tion of con­ver­sa­tions between Mr. Sneed and Reed Smith lawyers in which he agreed that he talked with his moth­er and daugh­ter about recant­i­ng his tes­ti­mo­ny, some­thing he previously denied.

Source: Death Penalty Information Center, Hayley Bedard, February 25, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde