In Glossip v. Oklahoma, 604 U.S. ___, No. 227466 (2025), the Supreme Court reversed the judgment below and remanded for a new trial because the prosecution violated its obligations under Napue. Here are some highlights.
An Oklahoma jury convicted petitioner Richard Glossip of paying Justin Sneed to murder Barry Van Treese and sentenced him to death. At trial, Sneed admitted he beat Van Treese to death, but testified that Glossip had offered him thousands of dollars to do so. Glossip confessed he helped Sneed conceal his crime after the fact, but he denied any involvement in the murder.Nearly two decades later, the State disclosed eight boxes of previously withheld documents from Glossip’s trial. These documents show that Sneed suffered from bipolar disorder, which, combined with his known drug use, could have caused impulsive outbursts of violence. They also established, the State agrees, that a jail psychiatrist prescribed Sneed lithium to treat that condition, and that the prosecution allowed Sneed falsely to testify at trial that he had never seen a psychiatrist. Faced with that evidence, Oklahoma’s attorney general confessed error. Before the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA), the State conceded that the prosecution’s failure to correct Sneed’s testimony violated Napue v. Illinois, 360 U. S. 264 (1959), which held that prosecutors have a constitutional obligation to correct false testimony. The attorney general accordingly asked the court to grant Glossip a new trial. The OCCA declined to grant relief because, it held, the State’s concession was not “based in law or fact.” 2023 OK CR 5, ¶25, 529 P. 3d 218, 226. Because the prosecution violated its obligations under Napue, we reverse the judgment below and remand the case for a new trial.To establish a Napue violation, a defendant must show that the prosecution knowingly solicited false testimony or knowingly allowed it “to go uncorrected when it appear[ed].” Ibid. If the defendant makes that showing, a new trial is warranted so long as the false testimony “may have had an effect on the outcome of the trial,” id., at 272— that is, if it “‘in any reasonable likelihood [could] have affected the judgment of the jury,’” Giglio v. United States, 405 U. S. 150, 154 (1972) (quoting Napue, 360 U. S., at 271). In effect, this materiality standard requires “‘“the beneficiary of [the] constitutional error to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the verdict obtained.”’”Here, Oklahoma’s attorney general joins Glossip in asserting a Napue error, conceding both that Sneed’s testimony was false and that the prosecution knowingly failed to correct it. The record supports that confession of error.Evidence can be material even if it “goes only to the credibility of the witness,” Napue, 360 U. S., at 269; indeed, “[t]he jury’s estimate of the truthfulness and reliability of a given witness may well be determinative of guilt or innocence,” ibid. Because Sneed’s testimony was the only direct evidence of Glossip’s guilt of capital murder, the jury’s assessment of Sneed’s credibility was necessarily determinative here. Besides Sneed, no other witness and no physical evidence established that Glossip orchestrated Van Treese’s murder. Thus, the jury could convict Glossip only if it believed Sneed.Had the prosecution corrected Sneed on the stand, his credibility plainly would have suffered. That correction would have revealed to the jury not just that Sneed was untrustworthy (as amicus points out, the jury already knew he repeatedly lied to the police), but also that Sneed was willing to lie to them under oath. Such a revelation would be significant in any case, and was especially so here where Sneed was already “nobody’s idea of a strong witness.” Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae 37. Even if Sneed’s bipolar disorder were wholly irrelevant, as amicus argues, his willingness to lie about it to the jury was not. “‘A lie is a lie, no matter what its subject.’” Napue, 360 U. S., at 269 (quoting People v. Savvides, 1 N. Y. 2d 554, 557, 136 N. E. 2d 853, 854–855 (1956)).In any event, amicus’s position is self-defeating. If the evidence impeaching Sneed’s credibility was already overwhelming, then no reasonable jury could have convicted Glossip in the first place, given that the prosecution’s case rested centrally on Sneed’s credibility. Amicus appears to assume the jury would have believed Sneed no matter what. Such an assumption has no place in a materiality analysis, which asks what a reasonable decision maker would have done with the new evidence.
