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Supreme Court finds prosecutorial duty to correct false testimony in Glossop v. Oklahoma; orders new trial on remedy vote
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Summary
In Glossop v. Oklahoma the Supreme Court found prosecutors breached a constitutional duty by allowing false testimony to stand (a Napue claim); the Court accepted jurisdiction and, after a split over remedy, a majority ordered a new trial. The decision highlights growing challenges from post-conviction discovery.
Jim Chance, host of the Federal Judicial Center's Term Talk podcast, convened a panel to analyze the Supreme Court's decision in Glossop v. Oklahoma, a post-conviction case in which newly disclosed documents reportedly showed a prosecution witness gave false testimony.
Laurie Levinson, a law professor and David W. Birnbaum Chair in Ethical Advocacy at Loyola Law School, summarized the case's procedural history: "Richard Glossop was convicted... [and] for 28 years asserted his innocence," and late disclosures—"about 8 boxes of new documents"—revealed that the prosecution's key witness, Justin Snead, had lied about his mental-health history and medication, evidence that could affect credibility and the merits of the case.
Levinson described the constitutional claim invoked here under Napue v. Illinois: when a prosecutor knows that testimony is false, "there is an absolute duty to do that"—to correct the record. The panel explained that the Supreme Court concluded it had jurisdiction because the state's procedural ruling depended on an antecedent federal question; on the merits the Court's majority found a Napue violation.
Panelists said the high court split over the proper remedy. Evan Lee, emeritus professor at UC Law San Francisco, noted procedural disagreement over whether a new trial or an evidentiary hearing was warranted; the transcript discussion reports that Justice Barrett joined the dissent on the remedy question, producing a 5–3 margin in favor of granting a new trial. Dissenting justices Thomas and Alito argued the discrepancy in Snead's testimony was immaterial to the conviction and criticized what they described as politicization of the case.
Practitioners and lower courts should take from the decision that prosecutors have a duty to correct known false testimony and that post-conviction discovery may surface more Napue-type claims. As Levinson put it, as "we see more post-conviction discovery come out," courts will confront similar issues that require distinguishing Napue obligations from Brady disclosure obligations.
The immediate procedural outcome is a remand for further proceedings consistent with the Court's ruling on the constitutional claim and the remedy it ordered.
