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Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma man who has been on death row since 1998, will be removed from potential execution and face a new trial in his murder case, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.
In a rare win for a death row inmate from the conservative court, the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 in favor of throwing Glossip’s murder conviction out, saying he was given an unfair trial after it was revealed prosecutors hid evidence that could have led to his acquittal and a star witness lied in court.
Glossip, 62, was found guilty of arranging for the murder of his boss in 1997 at a motel that Glossip managed.
The state’s main witness, Justin Sneed, admitted to beating Glossip’s boss to death with a baseball bat and offered his testimony in exchange for immunity from the death penalty. However, years later, the Oklahoma Criminal Appeals Court found Sneed to be unreliable.
Despite the evidence, Glossip had been scheduled to death at least seven times and eaten three separate “last meals”. Appeals courts and the Republican state attorney general had intervened in stopping Glossip from being executed.
The Supreme Court agreed to take up his case last year on appeal after the state upheld his sentence and a pardon and parole board voted against granting him clemency.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the majority opinion that the prosecution “violated its constitutional obligation to correct false testimony.”
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Kentaji Brown Jackson joined the majority. Justice Amy Coney Barett joined some of the majority’s opinion and some of the dissent’s opinion.
Justices Clarence Thomas, joined by Samuel Alito, dissented and argued the Supreme Court “stretches the law at every turn” in order to rule in Glossip’s favor. He argued the Supreme Court does not have the power to override the state court rulings.
Justice Neil Gorsuch took no part in the consideration.
Prosecutors had pinned the orchestration of the murder of 54-year-old motel owner Barry Van Treese on Glossip after Sneed told investigators Glossip instructed him to do so.
Glossip, who had no criminal history nor any physical evidence linking him to the murder, maintained innocence in the case.
His conviction rested entirely on Sneed’s testimony. It was later revealed prosecutors failed to disclose Sneed had a history of mental illness.
Glossip first won an appeal in 2001 when a state appeals court called for a re-trial finding that Glossip had ineffective counsel. But he was found guilty and sentenced to death again in 2004.
A report later found that prosecutors never provided Glossip’s attorneys with a box of evidence.
In 2015, a court intervened before Glossip was scheduled to be executed after he and two other inmates argued the state’s lethal injection protocol was unconstitutional.
One of the most damning pieces of evidence in Glossip’s favor was the discovery of a note, written by prosecutors, which seemingly revealed Sneed was fed what to say by prosecutors before taking the stand.
The case is a rare win for a death row inmate, especially in Oklahoma which has the highest execution rate per capita.
“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,” Don Knight, an attorney for Glossip, said in a statement.
“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.”
