Today, June 18, 2025, the Supreme Court released its decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti, a challenge to Tennessee Senate Bill 1, which prohibits healthcare providers from performing or administering gender-affirming care to minors while allowing the same treatments for minors who suffer from other conditions In the 6-3 opinion, written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court upheld the law, concluding that the ban “is not subject to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and satisfies rational basis review.”
What You Need to Know
- Facts of the Case: At least 26 states have banned gender-affirming healthcare for people under 18 years old in the past four years, despite it being available and the standard of care for decades. Passed in 2023, Tennessee’s ban applies to both medication and surgical care for transgender youth, characterized by the state as: “(A) Enabling a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex; or (B) Treating purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor's sex and asserted identity.” Tennessee’s ban states that: “These procedures can lead to the minor becoming irreversibly sterile, having increased risk of disease and illness, or suffering from adverse and sometimes fatal psychological consequences. Moreover, the legislature finds it likely that not all harmful effects associated with these types of medical procedures when performed on a minor are yet fully known, as many of these procedures, when performed on a minor for such purposes, are experimental in nature and not supported by high-quality, long-term medical studies.” Despite these purported concerns, the state prohibits these treatments only for one use — gender-affirming healthcare. The ban explicitly allows the same treatments to be provided for minors suffering from any other medical conditions for which such treatment, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or surgery, is considered the standard of care. This disparate treatment was one of the bases for the challenge of the ban under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Question Presented: Whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1, which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or to treat “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity,” violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Oral Argument: When this case was argued before the Court last October, then-U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar and ACLU’s Co-Director of the LGBT & HIV Project Chase Strangio (who is the first openly transgender attorney to appear before the U.S. Supreme Court), argued that the Court should find that SB 1 makes a sex-based classification subject to intermediate scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause, recognize transgender status as a suspect classification entitled to similar heightened scrutiny, or hold that SB 1 does not withstand even rational basis review. Tennessee argued that the ban should be subject rational basis review, denying that SB 1 makes a sex-based classification or that transgender status is a suspect classification under the Constitution.
- The Court’s Decision: In a 6-3 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court held that SB 1 makes only two classifications: age (minor v. adult) and medical use (gender affirming care v. all other uses) and that neither of those classifications triggers the need for heightened scrutiny. The majority fails to adequately address the argument made on behalf of the plaintiffs that the law draws a clear classification based on sex, given that “a teenager whose sex assigned at birth is male can be prescribed testosterone to conform to a male gender identity, but a teenager assigned female at birth cannot.” Rather, the Court’s majority opinion contends that the sex classification explicitly included in the law is a “mere reference,” that is not sufficient to trigger heightened scrutiny. The Court further denies what is plainly clear in this and other similar bans, that the targeted group for these laws are transgender people. In a particularly galling assertion, Chief Justice Roberts states that the bans do not single out transgender people but rather, “remove[] one set of diagnoses—gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder, and gender incongruence—from the range of treatable conditions.” This assertion studiously ignores that fact that these diagnoses are the medical bases for gender confirming treatments almost exclusively sought after by one group—transgender and gender nonconforming people. Finally, in rejecting the plaintiff’s argument that SB 1 and similar bans fail even under the most permissive standard of review—rational basis—the Court again willfully ignores the animus and discriminatory intent of the ban on gender confirming healthcare. The Court relied on the states unsupported claims of increased risk of disease and adverse psychological consequences, despite an amicus brief from the American Academy of Pediatrics, joined by more than a dozen other medical and mental health organizations, asserting that, “Empirical evidence indicates that gender-affirming care, including the prescription of puberty blockers and hormone therapy . . . can alleviate clinically significant distress and lead to significant improvements in the mental health and overall wellbeing of adolescents with gender dysphoria.”
- The Dissent: In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Jackson and Kagan, makes clear the incongruity of the majority’s opinion, observing that under SB 1, “Male (but not female) adolescents can receive medicines that help them look like boys, and female (but not male) adolescents can receive medicines that help them look like girls,” making it a clear sex classification based on sex. She continues, “The majority contorts logic and precedent to say otherwise, inexplicably declaring it must uphold Tennessee’s categorical ban on lifesaving medical treatment so long as “‘any reasonably conceivable state of facts’” might justify it.” She concludes that the Court’s decision to obsfucate the obvious sex classification inherent in SB 1 “does irrevocable damage to the Equal Protection Clause and invites legislatures to engage in discrimination by hiding blatant sex classifications in plain sight. It also authorizes, without second thought, untold harm to transgender children and the parents and families who love them.
- The Potential Impact: According to the Williams Institute, nearly 40 percent of trans youth ages 13-17 live in a state where they are denied potentially lifesaving medical treatment due to bans similar to SB 1. By allowing Tennessee’s ban to remain in place, the Court is making this critical healthcare unavailable to thousands of young people seeking to express their authentic identities. Much like reproductive healthcare post-Dobbs, this decision creates an unnecessary and harmful divide making critical healthcare contingent on the state in which one lives. The Court’s decision may also serve as a signal to states seeking to pass even more draconian bans targeted at both youth and adults. In fact, during oral argument, Strangio noted that if this ban were upheld in the face of an equal protection challenge, then bans of gender-affirming healthcare for adults might also be constitutionally permitted, a position Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice said the state would take.
Oral Argument
On December 4, 2024, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in U.S. v. Skrmetti, a challenge under the Equal Protection Clause to Tennessee Senate Bill 1, which prohibits healthcare providers from performing or administering gender-affirming care to minors while allowing the same treatments for minors who suffer from “congenital defect, precocious puberty, disease, or physical injury.” This is the first case the Court has heard related to a ban on gender-affirming care for people under 18 years old, of which 26 states currently have some form.
What You Need to Know
- Facts of the Case: Since 2021, at least 26 states have banned gender-affirming healthcare for people under 18 years old, despite such healthcare being available and the standard of care for decades. Two states ban best practice surgical care for transgender youth, while the remaining 24 states ban both best practice medication and surgical care for transgender youth. Passed in 2023, Tennessee’s ban applies to both medication and surgical care for transgender youth, characterized by the state as: “(A) Enabling a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex; or (B) Treating purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor's sex and asserted identity.” The ban creates a private right of action for minors and their parents or next of kin against a healthcare provider who provided gender-affirming care and allows the state attorney general to independently seek civil penalties of $25,000 per violation of the ban. The ban explicitly allows the same treatments to be provided for minors suffering from any other medical conditions for which such treatment, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or surgery, is considered the standard of care. Tennessee’s ban states that: “These procedures can lead to the minor becoming irreversibly sterile, having increased risk of disease and illness, or suffering from adverse and sometimes fatal psychological consequences. Moreover, the legislature finds it likely that not all harmful effects associated with these types of medical procedures when performed on a minor are yet fully known, as many of these procedures, when performed on a minor for such purposes, are experimental in nature and not supported by high-quality, long-term medical studies.” Despite these purported concerns, the state prohibits these treatments only for one use — gender-affirming healthcare. Yet, in an amicus brief filed with the Court, the American Academy of Pediatrics, joined by more than a dozen other medical and mental health organizations, asserted that, “Empirical evidence indicates that gender-affirming care, including the prescription of puberty blockers and hormone therapy . . . can alleviate clinically significant distress and lead to significant improvements in the mental health and overall wellbeing of adolescents with gender dysphoria.”
- Procedural History: In 2023, three transgender minors, their parents, and a doctor sued several Tennessee officials in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. The U.S. Department of Justice intervened to support the plaintiffs under a federal law that permits the Attorney General to sue to address equal protection violations. The district court judge found that that the ban “discriminates on the basis of sex and that transgender persons constitute a quasi-suspect class” and was therefore “facially unconstitutional,” and issued a preliminary injunction. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned the judge’s decision in the case and stayed the injunction, allowing the ban to go into effect. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in June 2024.
- Questions Presented: Whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1, which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or to treat “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity,” violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
- What Happened at Oral Argument: Both U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, and counsel for the three transgender minors, Co-Director of the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project Chase Strangio (whose appearance marked the first time an openly transgender attorney appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court), argued that the Court should find that SB 1 makes a sex-based classification subject to intermediate scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause, recognize transgender status as a suspect classification entitled to similar heightened scrutiny, or hold that SB 1 does not withstand even rational basis review. Applying heightened scrutiny based on sex or transgender status would require Tennessee (and other states imposing similar bans) to demonstrate that the law furthers an important government interest and that the means are substantially related to that interest. As Prelogar noted, the challenged law would not survive heightened scrutiny in part because it is underinclusive. Despite the state’s claim that puberty blockers and hormone treatments are too dangerous to adolescent health, those treatments are allowed for all medical purposes except when a minor seeks to affirm their gender identity in contrast to the gender they were assigned at birth. “Thus, for example, a teenager whose sex assigned at birth is male can be prescribed testosterone to conform to a male gender identity, but a teenager assigned female at birth cannot.” Tennessee makes this classification explicit by justifying SB 1 as “encouraging minors to appreciate and not be disdainful of their sex.” Justice Alito expressed skepticism about the medical validity of gender-affirming healthcare and at various points attempted to include evidence that had neither been admitted in the original district court case or otherwise briefed, leading Prelogar to respond that, “There is a time and place for that inquiry. It’s not here.” She argued that the Court’s role in this case is to determine the level of scrutiny and remand to the district court to figure out the factual record. Justice Alito, along with Justices Kavanaugh, Thomas, and Chief Justice Roberts, expressed concern about the Court’s role in evaluating such medical evidence and each suggested that it may be outside the Court’s proper role. This prompted Justice Jackson to express concern, saying “It is a bedrock in the Equal Protection framework that . . . where a legislature is drawing lines [using] suspect classifications . . . that’s a question for the Court.” She expressed concern that any suggestion that the Court should step away from that role will “[u]ndermine the foundational bedrock of equal protection.”
- Potential Impact: Three circuits courts have allowed gender-affirming healthcare bans enacted by multiple states to go into effect. These bans have proliferated and now, according to the Williams Institute, nearly 40 percent of trans youth ages 13-17 live in a state where they are denied potentially lifesaving medical treatment. If the Court upholds the ban in this case, it would remain in effect in Tennessee and would impact challenges to other states’ bans in courts throughout the country. It could also lead more states to pass these and even more draconian bans. During oral argument, Strangio noted that if this ban were upheld in the face of an equal protection challenge, then bans of gender-affirming healthcare for adults might also be constitutionally permitted, a position Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice said the state would take.
For more information about the cases on the Court’s docket this term, make sure to listen to our Broken Law podcast (Episode 158 is our SCOTUS Preview) and catch the video of our SCOTUS Preview program.
Today, June 5, the Supreme Court released several decisions of the 2024-2025 Term, including Ames v. Ohio, in which the Court held unanimously that members of majority groups face the same burdens as minority groups when bringing employment discrimination claims.
What You Need to Know
- Question Before the Court: Is a heterosexual plaintiff, who believes she has lost employment opportunities because she was not gay, required to show that there were “background circumstances” which would support the suspicion that the defendant is an “unusual employer who discriminates against the majority”?
- What Happened at the Oral Argument: Very early in questioning, the counsel for the respondent, Ohio, acknowledged that the “idea that you hold people to different standards because of their protected characteristics is wrong,” leaving little doubt about how that element of the case would be resolved.
- What Did the Court Decide: In a unanimous decision, the Court ruled that the background circumstances rule is not rooted in the text of Title VII or Supreme Court precedent. The Court emphasized that Title VII gives the “same protections to every ‘individual’ regardless of their membership in a minority or majority group.” In a concurrence, Justices Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, also suggested that American employers have become “obsessed” with “diversity, equity and inclusion” initiatives contributing to discrimination against perceived minority groups.
- What to Make of the Result: The Court’s ruling largely restates settled, and generally uncontroversial legal principles. It brings the handful of circuits who applied the background circumstances rule in line with the rest of the nation. Nevertheless, the timing of the ruling and concurrences from Justices Thomas’s concurrence may lend momentum to the anti-DEI legal movement, which has attempted to conflate support for diversity, equity and inclusion with "reverse discrimination." Observers should remember that most widely accepted DEI practices do not involve race or gender preferences and are not implicated by the ruling.
On May 22, the Supreme Court issued a 4-4 one-line, per curiam decision in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond. The decision leaves in place an Oklahoma Supreme Court decision that blocked the creation of what would have been the nation’s first religious public charter school.
What You Need to Know
- Facts of this Case: In early 2023, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa applied to the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board to form St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. St. Isidore would provide online classes, including religious curriculum, to about 500 K-12 students. On June 5, 2023, the Board approved the application. On October 9, 2023, the Board voted to approve the school’s contract for sponsorship, with the Board as its government sponsor. The contract states that St. Isidore has the right to freely exercise its religious beliefs and practices and explicitly notes the school’s affiliation with a nonpublic sectarian school or religious institution. Under Oklahoma state law, charter schools are considered public schools and receive funding from the state.
- Procedural Background: Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond sought a writ of mandamus directing the Board to rescind the school’s contract. On June 25, 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that the contract violates the Oklahoma state constitution, Oklahoma state law, and the federal Establishment Clause. The Court further directed the Board to rescind its contract with St. Isidore. The Board and St. Isidore appealed to the United States Supreme Court and on January 24, 2025, the cases were consolidated and cert was granted.
- Relevant Precedent: This case is the latest in a string of religious school funding cases the Roberts Court has taken up in recent years. In his opinion for the majority in the 2020 case Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, Chief Justice Roberts explained “a state need not subsidize private education. But once a state decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.” In 2022, the Court went a step further in Carson v. Makin, with Chief Justice Roberts again writing for the majority that Maine’s tuition assistance program, which provided money for private, nonsectarian school tuition when no public school was easily accessible, violated the Free Exercise Clause as it “operate[d] to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise.” This incremental progression, from allowing public money to flow indirectly to private religious schools to requiring public money to flow indirectly to private religious schools should a state allow for any public money to flow indirectly to any private schools, caused Justice Sotomayor to note in her Carson dissent that “[t]he Court’s increasingly expansive view of the Free Exercise Clause risks swallowing the space between the Religion Clauses that once ‘permitted religious exercise to exist without sponsorship and without interference.’”
- Issue Before the Court: Does the contract establishing St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Charter School violate the Oklahoma Constitution, state law, and the First Amendment?
- What did the Court decide: The entirety of the Court’s 4-4 per curiam decision is one sentence long: “The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.” The Court also noted Justice Barrett’s recusal, which many have presumed was prompted by her prior relationship with Notre Dame Law School’s religious liberty clinic, which was involved in the case. The result came as a surprise to many court observers, as a majority of the Court seemed to signal their openness to a religious charter school during oral argument on April 30th. Given the unsigned opinion, it is unclear which of the Court’s conservative justices presumably joined the liberal bloc to create the deadlock.
- Take Away: The immediate impact of Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond will be to block what would have been the nation’s first religious public charter school. That unexpected result is a victory unto itself. The prohibition on public funding for religious schools has been foundational to the separation of church and state. However, the 4-4 split and single sentence decision has no precedential value. The threat of further subjugation of the Establishment Clause to the Free Exercise Clause, and publicly-funded religious schools, remains.
On March 26, 2025, the Supreme Court issued a 7-2 decision in Bondi v. VanDerStok. This case focused on the government’s authority to regulate “ghost guns” under the Gun Control Act of 1968. A ruling against the government would have increased the availability of untraceable, unlicensed firearms further exacerbating the gun violence crisis.
What You Need to Know
- Facts of this Case: In recent years, technological advances, including 3D printing, have made it easier for companies to manufacture and sell firearms parts kits, which buyers can assemble into working firearms within minutes using common hand tools. Unlike normal firearms, these “ghost guns” don’t have serial numbers and could previously be sold without licensing or background checks, making them attractive to people who cannot legally own weapons or plan to use them in crime. In 2022, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) issued a new rule clarifying that ghost guns are “firearms” within the scope of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and thus must comply with the same requirements as commercially sold guns. Sellers challenged the rule arguing that the parts kits do not meet the statutory definition of “firearms.”
- Relevant Precedent & Background: In November 2023, the Fifth Circuit ruled that the ATF had exceeded its statutory authority in interpreting the Gun Control Act, reasoning that although the Act applies to “any weapon…which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive” as well as “frames or receivers” of those weapons, it does not apply to incomplete frames or receivers, or parts of weapons. Through its emergency docket, the Supreme Court allowed the ATF to continue enforcing the regulation while the litigation proceeded. The case was heard during President Biden’s term with Attorney General Merrick Garland the named petitioner and then-Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued on behalf of the government.
- Question Presented to the Court: Whether weapons parts kits that are designed to or may be readily completed, assembled, restored or otherwise converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive are “firearms” within the scope of the Gun Control Act of 1968.
- What did the Court decide: In a 7-2 decision, Justice Gorsuch upheld the Biden-era federal regulation, holding that weapons parts kits are firearms within the scope of the Gun Control Act and affirming the government’s authority to regulate them as such. Gorsuch writing for the majority noted the “profound changes in how guns are made and sold” since the act was adopted and the proliferation of crimes involving ghost guns in recent years. Justices Sotomayor, Kavanaugh, and Jackson each wrote brief concurring opinions and Justices Thomas and Alito wrote separate dissents. Justice Thomas claimed the majority “blesses the Government’s overreach” by “rewrit[ing] statutory text” while Justice Alito objected to the test applied by the Court in reaching its result while offering his own. In response to the Court’s decision, one noted legal observer has argued that the decision “leaves relatively little room for the Trump Administration to replace it with a watered-down substitute.”
- Take Away: The Court’s decision in VanDerStok empowers ATF to regulate and curb the availability of untraceable, unlicensed firearms that further exacerbate the gun violence crisis. The Trump Administration could attempt to revoke the rule in the future but yesterday’s ruling is a legal victory for gun control advocates as regulation of ghost guns has been found to be consistent with the Gun Control Act of 1968.
ORAL ARGUMENT
The Supreme Court heard oral argument in October 2024 in Garland v. VanDerStok, a case challenging the government’s authority to regulate “ghost guns” under the Gun Control Act of 1968. A ruling against the government, would make it easier to obtain and circulate unregistered firearms.
What You Need to Know
- Facts of this Case: In recent years, technological advances, including 3D printing, have made it easier for companies to manufacture and sell firearms parts kits, which buyers can assemble into working firearms within minutes using common hand tools. Unlike normal firearms, these “ghost guns” don’t have serial numbers and could previously be sold without licensing or background checks, making them attractive to people who cannot legally own weapons or plan to use them in crime. In 2022, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) issued a new rule clarifying that ghost guns are “firearms” within the scope of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and thus must comply with the same requirements as commercially sold guns. Sellers challenged the rule arguing that the parts kits do not meet the statutory definition of “firearms.”
- Relevant Precedent & Background: In November 2023, the Fifth Circuit ruled that the ATF had exceeded its statutory authority in interpreting the Gun Control Act, reasoning that although the Act applies to “any weapon…which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive” as well as “frames or receivers” of those weapons, it does not apply to incomplete frames or receivers, or parts of weapons. Through its emergency docket, the Supreme Court allowed the ATF to continue enforcing the regulation while the litigation proceeded.
- Question Presented to the Court: Whether weapons parts kits that are designed to or may be readily completed, assembled, restored or otherwise converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive are “firearms” within the scope of the Gun Control Act of 1968.
- Potential Impact? A ruling against the government would increase the availability of untraceable, unlicensed firearms further exacerbating the gun violence crisis.
- What happened at the oral argument: During oral arguments, Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch expressed doubt that the plain meaning of a term could include its component parts, with Justice Gorsuch drawing a distinction between a pad and paper and a grocery list. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett appeared more receptive, with Barrett suggesting the better analogy would be a Hello Fresh kit for turkey chili. Meanwhile, Justices Jackson, Kagan and Sotomayor seemed inclined to defer to the government’s reasonable interpretation of the statue.
The Supreme Court heard oral argument today in Glossip v. Oklahoma, a death penalty case involving a state’s admitted suppression of a key witness’s history of treatment for mental illness and prosecutors’ failure to correct that witness’s false testimony. The Court will decide whether this violates Richard Glossip’s due process rights and whether he will ultimately face execution or receive a new trial.
What You Need to Know
- Facts of the Case: Richard Glossip was sentenced to death in 1998 for allegedly hiring Justin Sneed to murder their employer, Barry Van Treese. A court overturned Glossip’s original conviction due to ineffective assistance of counsel. In 2004, Glossip was retried and again sentenced to death largely based on the testimony of Sneed, who admitted to committing the murder. Nearly 20 years later, Glossip obtained evidence in the possession of prosecutors at the time of his 2004 trial that Sneed had been treated by a psychiatrist and lied about it in his testimony and that the prosecutor falsely denied any advance knowledge of Sneed’s change in testimony regarding the use of a knife in the murder. This information, which prosecutors were required to disclose under Supreme Court precedent, could have been used by Glossip’s counsel to raise doubts about Sneed’s credibility. There is also evidence that Sneed had wanted to recant his testimony that Glossip hired him to kill Van Treese. The Oklahoma Attorney General opened an independent counsel investigation that found prosecutorial misconduct sufficient for the attorney general to conclude in 2023 that he could not, “stand behind the murder conviction and death sentence of Richard Glossip.”
- Procedural History: In 2023, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (the highest criminal court in Oklahoma), denied Glossip’s motion to vacate his conviction, despite the Oklahoma Attorney General’s own motion submitted in support of Glossip’s motion. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board denied Glossip clemency that same month. Glossip was scheduled to be executed in May 2023, but sought and was granted a stay of execution by the U.S. Supreme Court. Oklahoma filed a response in support of the stay. The Court subsequently agreed to review the case, and because the state supported Glossip’s position, appointed an amicus to defend the ruling of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals.
- Questions Presented: (1) Whether the state’s suppression of the key prosecution witness’s admission that he was under the care of a psychiatrist and failure to correct that witness’s false testimony about that care and related diagnosis violate the due process of law under Brady v. Maryland and Napue v. Illinois; (2) whether the entirety of the suppressed evidence must be considered when assessing the materiality of Brady and Napue claims; (3) whether due process of law requires reversal where a capital conviction is so infected with errors that the state no longer seeks to defend it; and (4) whether the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals' holding that the Oklahoma Post-Conviction Procedure Act precluded post-conviction relief is an adequate and independent state-law ground for the judgment.
- Potential Impact: The severity and finality of death as a punishment raises serious concerns about courts’ willingness to rely on byzantine post-conviction procedures to deny relief in cases where the integrity of the conviction or guilt of the individual are in question. As highlighted by the recent case of Marcellus Khaliifah Williams – a man who was executed despite an overwhelmingly strong claim of innocence and over the objections of the prosecutor’s office that originally prosecuted his case – there is concern that courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, do not recognize the constitutional due process right of an innocent or wrongfully convicted person not to be killed by the state.
- What Happened at Oral Argument: This was an unusual oral argument before eight justices (Justice Gorsuch recused himself), where the petitioner and respondent were arguing the same side, with a Supreme Court-appointed amicus lawyer defending the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals’ decision. Justices Alito and Thomas seemed focused on the procedural barriers that could prevent the Court from weighing in on the merits. Other justices’ questions were more squarely focused on the damage the alleged prosecutorial misconduct and constitutional violations might have caused to Glossip’s defense. Justice Sotomayor observed that the alleged constitutional violations, including failure of prosecutors to correct a witness’s false testimony, “is a significant thing. A jury would take that into account that a prosecutor had to stop the testimony to point out the lie.” In a case that could determine whether a man lives or dies, Justice Thomas began the morning by asking Glossip’s attorney why they had not interviewed the two prosecutors who tried his 2004 case, since “their reputations are being impugned,” and later suggested that the two prosecutors, whose alleged misconduct is central to the case, could have cleared up any ambiguity around the meaning of the previously undisclosed evidence. The two prosecutors had been interviewed during an independent investigation launched by the Oklahoma Attorney General, and, as Glossip’s attorney pointed out, had offered multiple inconsistent statements about the evidence. Justice Jackson asked whether it might not be appropriate to return the case to the state court for an evidentiary hearing. In a moment that elicited laughter in the otherwise somber proceedings, when told by the amicus lawyer that she offered a strong legal writing critique of the Oklahoma court’s opinion, Justice Kagan quipped, “I haven’t even started.”
