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.’”

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.

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.