The Supreme Court on Monday sided with a death row inmate in Florida who was blocked from challenging his sentence even though a lower court acknowledged a key witness lied on stand, marking the third time the conservative high court has backed an inmate sentenced to death in recent weeks.
In an unsigned opinion, the court threw out a decision from a federal appeals court that sided with the state because, it said, the judges considered DNA evidence that had not been presented at trial. Over a dissent from two conservative justices, the Supreme Court’s summary decision will require the federal appeals court to take another look at the case.
It was the latest of several high-profile death penalty cases in which the Supreme Court has sided with a defendant over the objection of some members of the court’s conservative wing.
Last week, the court ruled in favor of a Black man on death row in Mississippi who said the prosecutor engaged in racial bias by striking Black jurors. A week earlier, the court let stand an appeals court decision that barred Alabama from executing a man that lower courts found is likely intellectually disabled.
Especially on its emergency docket, the Supreme Court rarely steps in to stop an execution. In May, the court denied requests to halt executions in Tennessee and Florida.
