The Supreme Court denied review to Richard Glossip, a death row inmate making a last-minute plea for his life before he is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday. Only Justice Stephen Breyer, who recently expressed openness to declaring the death penalty itself unconstitutional in a case that also bears Glossip’s name, dissented from the Court’s order. Breyer did not explain his reasoning in a published dissent — the Court’s one-page order simply states that “Justice Breyer would grant the application for stay of execution.”
Glossip was convicted largely based on testimony from Justin Sneed, who has since bragged to fellow inmates that he set Glossip up in order to save his own life. Glossip was accused of hiring Sneed, who actually committed the murder at issue in this case, to beat their mutual boss to death with a baseball bat.
Other parts of the state’s case against Glossip have also developed holes. A dealer who sold drugs to Sneed testified that he was addicted to meth and frequently broke into motel rooms to steal money in order to support his habit — a pattern that is consistent with the events leading up to the murder in this case. A recording also shows Sneed bargaining with a detective for a reduced sentence in return for fingering Glossip.
Nevertheless, the Supreme Court decided that the uncertainty about Glossip guilt or innocence does not warrant hearing his case. Two days earlier, the highest criminal court in Oklahoma ruled against Glossip in a divided 3–2 decision explaining that “the law favors the legal principle of finality of judgement.”
At least some members of the Supreme Court have taken this principle to dramatic extremes. In 2009, for example, the Court gave a measure of relief to Troy Anthony Davis, a Georgia man sentenced to die despite the fact that seven of the witnesses against him since recanted their testimony. Justice Antonin Scalia, however, was unmoved by Davis’s case, writing in dissent that “this Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”
Though the Court gave Davis another opportunity to argue his case to a lower court, the Davis case ultimately stood as another example of just how difficult it is for a death row inmate to escape their sentence once they are convicted — even if there are considerable doubts about their guilt. Davis was executed in 2011.
Update:
Due to a last-minute stay by the Governor, Glossip’s execution has been rescheduled for November 7.