What happened
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review James Skinner's Louisiana murder conviction Monday, prompting a dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor that accused the state courts of denying him the same Brady relief the high court previously gave his codefendant.
Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, said Skinner and Michael Wearry were tried for the 1998 murder of Eric Walber on similar evidence centered on the same two eyewitnesses. Wearry, who had been sentenced to death, won relief from the Supreme Court in 2016 after the justices found the prosecution had violated its duty to disclose favorable evidence. Skinner, who was convicted by an 11-1 vote and sentenced to life in prison, remains incarcerated.
The dissent said Skinner's case turned on testimony from Sam Scott and Eric Brown, while the state presented no physical evidence connecting Skinner to the murder. Sotomayor wrote that later-disclosed records undercut Scott's account, showed Brown sought favorable treatment, pointed to other possible suspects and undermined parts of the prosecution's closing argument.
Louisiana courts rejected Skinner's renewed postconviction bid after Wearry, with the postconviction court saying the new statements lacked sufficient credibility and that Wearry was distinguishable. Sotomayor said that analysis was legally flawed because Brady materiality does not impose a standalone credibility requirement and must consider suppressed evidence collectively.
The dissent framed the case as an unusual certiorari denial because the Supreme Court had already assessed overlapping evidence in Wearry. If Skinner and Wearry had reached the justices together, Sotomayor wrote, it was all but certain both would have received the same relief.
Sotomayor closed by invoking "Equal justice under law," saying two codefendants convicted of the same crime and raising essentially the same constitutional claims should receive the same answer from the courts. Because the Court denied review, Skinner's next potential path is federal habeas proceedings, which the dissent said the Fifth Circuit had recently authorized him to pursue.