In 5-3 decision in Glossip v. Oklahoma, No. 22-7466 (Feb. 25, 2025), the Supreme Court reversed Oklahoma death row Petitioner Richard Glossip’s 2004 conviction for arranging the 1997 murder of Barry Von Treese. The majority ordered a new trial because prosecutors allowed a key witness to lie in court, withheld impeachment information, and failed to correct the false testimony as required by Napue v. Illinois, concluding that the jury might not have sentenced Mr. Glossip to death if the testimony had been corrected.
Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Kagan, Kavanaugh, Jackson, and in part II, by Barrett. Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Alito, and by Barrett, in part. Justice Gorsuch took no part in the case.
This decision is the second notable Supreme Court opinion involving Glossip, who had been scheduled for, and come close to, execution many times. In 2015, the Court rejected his claims that using midazolam in lethal injection protocols violated the Eighth Amendment. Glossip v. Gross, 576 U.S. 863 (2015).
Glossip was convicted of arranging the death of his employer Barry Von Treese, the owner of a motel managed by Glossip. The prosecution had relied almost entirely on the testimony of one witness, a handyman named Justin Sneed who had pleaded guilty to killing Von Treese at Glossip’s behest, in exchange for a life sentence.
After two independent investigations by the Oklahoma legislature and Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond raised doubts about Mr. Glossip’s guilt based on withheld evidence and faulty testimony, Attorney General Drummond joined Glossip’s request to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to set aside his conviction and his plea for clemency to the state’s pardon board. Both were denied and the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay and certiorari.
Justice Sotomayor’s majority opinion starts like this:
An Oklahoma jury convicted petitioner Richard Glossip of paying Justin Sneed to murder Barry Van Treese and sentenced him to death. At trial, Sneed admitted he beat Van Treese to death, but testified that Glossip had offered him thousands of dollars to do so. Glossip confessed he helped Sneed conceal his crime after the fact, but he denied any involvement in the murder.
Nearly two decades later, the State disclosed eight boxes of previously withheld documents from Glossip’s trial. These documents show that Sneed suffered from bipolar disorder, which, combined with his known drug use, could have caused impulsive outbursts of violence. They also established, the State agrees, that a jail psychiatrist prescribed Sneed lithium to treat that condition, and that the prosecution allowed Sneed falsely to testify at trial that he had never seen a psychiatrist. Faced with that evidence, Oklahoma’s attorney general confessed error. Before the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA), the State conceded that the prosecution’s failure to correct Sneed’s testimony violated Napue v. Illinois, 360 U. S. 264 (1959), which held that prosecutors have a constitutional obligation to correct false testimony. The attorney general accordingly asked the court to grant Glossip a new trial. The OCCA declined to grant relief because, it held, the State’s concession was not “based in law or fact.” 2023 OK CR 5, ¶25, 529 P. 3d 218, 226. Because the prosecution violated its obligations under Napue, we revers the judgment below and remand the case for a new trial.
After the decision, Attorney General Drummond issued a powerful statement, declaring “[o]ur justice system is greatly diminished when an individual is convicted without a fair trial, but today we can celebrate that a great injustice has been swept away.”
Merits briefing is available on the Supreme Court’s website here.