The US Supreme Court has ordered a new trial for Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma man on death row.
The court ruled 5-3 in favour of Glossip, reversing an Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruling.
The move comes after the state’s Republican attorney general joined Glossip in calling for a new trial.
Glossip, 62, was convicted in the 1997 murder of the owner of an Oklahoma City motel where he worked. He has had nine execution dates postponed, and eaten his “last meal” three times.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in Tuesday’s opinion for the court: “We conclude that the prosecution violated its constitutional obligation to correct false testimony.”
She was joined in the ruling by fellow liberal justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts, both conservatives, also joined the opinion.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, another conservative, agreed with the opinion but said she would have sent the case back for more proceedings.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not join in the case.
Don Knight, an attorney for Glossip, called the ruling “a victory for justice and fairness in our judicial system”.
The defence lawyer said Glossip will be given the chance to have a fair trial “that he has always been denied”.
It will be up to Oklahoma prosecutors to determine how to proceed with his case.
Glossip has maintained his innocence for 27 years.
His boss, Barry Van Treese, owner of the Best Budget Inn motel in Oklahoma City , was beaten to death with a baseball bat in 1997.
Glossip’s colleague, Justin Sneed, was convicted of the killing, but said Glossip had told him to carry out the murder.
Sneed confessed to the murder but was able to evade execution by accepting a plea deal that involved testifying that Glossip paid him $10,000 to do it.
Glossip admitted to assisting Sneed in covering up the murder after it happened, but denied knowing of any plan to kill Van Treese.
It has since emerged that prosecutors did not disclose that Sneed, a methamphetamine addict, had been treated for a serious psychiatric condition.
“Had the prosecution corrected Sneed on the stand, his credibility plainly would have suffered,” Justice Sotomayor wrote.
“That correction would have revealed to the jury not just that Sneed was untrustworthy … but also that Sneed was willing to lie to them under oath.”
Glossip was first convicted in 1998, but that was overturned in 2001. He was convicted again three years later.
In 2015, just a few steps away from the execution chamber, his execution was halted to review the lethal injection drugs.
In 2023, the Supreme Court intervened after Oklahoma’s attorney general and Glossip asked for a new trial.
A number of big names have backed Glossip’s efforts in the past including Pope Francis, Kim Kardashian and Sir Richard Branson.
Read More: {source}
