Editor’s Note: Law Week Colorado edits court opinion summaries for style and, when necessary, length.
Drivers whose licenses were suspended under a Virginia statute for failure to pay court fines sued the commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles under Section 1983 of the U.S. Code, challenging the statute as unconstitutional. The district court granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting the commissioner from enforcing the statute.
Before trial, the Virginia General Assembly repealed the statute and required reinstatement of licenses suspended under the law. The parties then agreed to dismiss the pending case as moot.
Section 1988(b) allows an award of attorney’s fees to “prevailing parties” under Section 1983. The district court declined to award attorney’s fees to the drivers under that section on the ground that parties who obtain a preliminary injunction do not qualify as “prevailing part[ies].” A 4th Circuit Court of Appeals panel affirmed, but the 4th Circuit reversed en banc. The en banc court held that some preliminary injunctions can provide lasting, merits-based relief and qualify plaintiffs as prevailing parties, even if the case becomes moot before final judgment.
The U.S. Supreme Court held that the plaintiff drivers — who it noted gained only preliminary injunctive relief before the action became moot — do not qualify as “prevailing part[ies]” eligible for attorney’s fees under Section 1988(b) because no court conclusively resolved their claims by granting enduring judicial relief on the merits that materially altered the legal relationship between the parties.
The high court reversed the judgment from the 4th Circuit and remanded the case.
Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the opinion of the court, in which Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito Jr., Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett joined. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined.
“Stated simply, the majority’s categorical preclusion of fee awards for any plaintiff who successfully obtains preliminary injunctive relief is unwarranted,” Jackson wrote in the dissent. “It lacks any basis in the text of [Section 1988(b)] and is plainly inconsistent with that statutory provision’s clear objective, which is to encourage attorneys to file civil rights actions on behalf of the most vulnerable people in our society.”
Jackson asserted the court has eliminated fee eligibility for all preliminary injunctions, even those that resolve the case. But the dissenting justices also acknowledged that if Congress had meant for “prevailing party” status to hinge on the “conclusive” nature of a judicial order, they could have said so.
“It is the role of Congress, not this [court], to weigh concerns about administrative ease against the benefits of guaranteeing individuals an opportunity to vindicate their civil rights,” the dissenting justices said. “There is no persuasive reason to believe that Congress meant to preclude fee awards for every plaintiff who secures preliminary injunctive relief but not a final judgment, no matter the context.”
In 1997, Justin Sneed beat Barry Van Treese to death with a baseball bat at an Oklahoma hotel owned by Van Treese and managed by Richard Glossip. Glossip initially made inconsistent statements to the police about Sneed’s role in the murder, but he ultimately told police that Sneed admitted to killing Van Treese.
Sneed later claimed Glossip had asked him to murder Van Treese because, among other things, Glossip had wanted to steal Van Treese’s money. Glossip maintained his innocence and refused a plea deal that would have had him avoid the death penalty in return for testifying against Sneed. Sneed then testified against Glossip at trial in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, and Sneed’s testimony was the only direct evidence connecting Glossip to the murder. The jury convicted Glossip and sentenced him to death.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals overturned that conviction because the defense had been ineffective in challenging Sneed’s testimony and the remainder of the evidence only weakly corroborated Sneed’s account. At the retrial, Sneed provided inconsistent testimony on potential motives for Glossip’s murder. Sneed also denied that he had been prescribed lithium or seen a psychiatrist.
After the defense established through the state’s medical examiner that Van Treese had been attacked with a knife as well as a bat, Sneed testified that he had repeatedly tried to stab Van Treese in the chest with a pocket knife. But Sneed had previously denied stabbing Van Treese both when questioned by the police and at Glossip’s first trial.
Glossip moved for a mistrial based on the prosecution’s failure to notify the defense about Sneed’s change in testimony, which the trial court denied after the prosecution disclaimed any knowledge about the change.
Glossip was again convicted and sentenced to death, and a closely divided criminal appeals court affirmed, holding that circumstantial evidence suggesting Glossip had mismanaged the hotel, combined with Glossip’s concession that he had been dishonest in his initial statements after the murder, sufficiently corroborated Sneed’s testimony that he killed Van Treese at Glossip’s direction.
Glossip subsequently filed several unsuccessful habeas petitions. Concerns over the integrity of his conviction led a bipartisan group of Oklahoma legislators to commission an independent investigation by law firm Reed Smith.
In June 2022, Reed Smith reported “grave doubt” about Glossip’s conviction, citing factors such as the prosecution’s deliberate destruction of key evidence and the false portrayal of Justin Sneed as a non-violent “puppet.” The state then disclosed seven boxes of previously withheld documents, including letters suggesting Sneed had considered recanting and a note from prosecutor Connie Smothermon to Sneed’s lawyer noting they should “get to” Sneed to discuss his problematic testimony about a knife found in Van Treese’s room.
Glossip filed for post-conviction relief based on this evidence and evidence revealed by Reed Smith. Glossip also argued that, during his second trial, Smothermon had interfered with Sneed’s testimony about the knife in violation of the rule of sequestration, which prohibits witnesses from hearing each other’s testimony. Oklahoma waived any procedural defenses to Glossip’s claims, and asked the criminal appeals court to deny the claims on their merits. The criminal appeals court denied Glossip’s claims as procedurally barred and meritless.
The state then discovered additional documents revealing that Sneed had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed lithium, contradicting his trial testimony. The attorney general determined that Smothermon had knowingly elicited false testimony from Sneed and failed to correct it, violating Napue v. Illinois, which held that prosecutors have a constitutional obligation to correct false testimony.
Glossip filed a successive petition for post-conviction relief, which the attorney general supported, conceding multiple errors that warranted a new trial. The criminal appeals court denied the unopposed petition without a hearing, holding that Glossip’s claims were procedurally barred under Oklahoma’s Post-Conviction Procedures Act, and that the state’s concession was not “based in law or fact” because it did not create a Napue error.
The U.S. Supreme Court stayed Glossip’s execution and granted certiorari.
The high court first held it had jurisdiction to review the criminal appeals court’s judgment because the criminal appeals court’s decision to apply the PCPA depended on its antecedent rejection of the attorney general’s confession of a Napue error, which was based solely on federal law. By making the application of the PCPA contingent on its determination that the attorney general’s confession of federal constitutional error was baseless, the Supreme Court found the criminal appeals court made the procedural bar dependent on an antecedent ruling on federal law.
Next, the Supreme Court determined the prosecution violated its constitutional obligation to correct false testimony.
Under Napue, a conviction obtained through the knowing use of false evidence violates the 14th Amendment’s due process clause. To establish a Napue violation, a defendant must show that the prosecution knowingly solicited or allowed false testimony to go uncorrected. If a violation is established, the high court noted a new trial is warranted if the false testimony could in any reasonable likelihood have affected the jury’s judgment. Meaning, ordinarily, that the prosecution must establish harmlessness beyond a reasonable doubt.
The court determined that because Sneed’s testimony was the only direct evidence of Glossip’s guilt, the jury’s assessment of Sneed’s credibility was material and necessarily determinative. Correcting Sneed’s lie would have undermined his credibility and revealed his willingness to lie under oath.
The false testimony also bore on Glossip’s guilt because evidence of Sneed’s bipolar disorder, which the court asserted could trigger impulsive violence when combined with his drug use, would have contradicted the prosecution’s portrayal of Sneed as harmless without Glossip’s influence. Hence there is a reasonable likelihood that correcting Sneed’s testimony would have affected the judgment of the jury.
Because the attorney general’s confession of error is supported by ample evidence, the court declined to remand the case for further evidentiary proceedings.
When the court has jurisdiction, a new trial is the appropriate remedy for a violation of Napue. It reversed the judgment and remanded for a new trial.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the court, in which Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined, and in which Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined as to Part II.
Barrett filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. “While I agree with much of the [court’s] analysis, I would not order the [Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals] to set aside Richard Glossip’s conviction,” she wrote. “Consistent with our ordinary practice, the [court] should have corrected the OCCA’s misstatement of Napue v. Illinois and remanded this case for further proceedings.”
Justice Clarence Thomas filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Samuel Alito Jr. joined, and in which Barrett joined as to Parts IV–A–1, IV–A–2 and IV–A–3.
Thomas wrote in his dissenting opinion that Glossip’s appeals in state courts and with Oklahoma’s parole board should have been the end of his appellate options because he asserted the court lacks the power to override those denials.
“Instead, the [court] stretches the law at every turn to rule in his favor,” Thomas wrote.
“On the merits, it finds a due process violation based on patently immaterial testimony about a witness’s medical condition,” Thomas wrote. “And, for the remedy, it orders a new trial in violation of black-letter law on this [court’s] power to review state-court judgments.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.