Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas harshly criticized the U.S. Supreme Court this week for declining to review a lower court decision that reversed the conviction of David M. Smith, an Ohio man who was given a 22-year term for a vicious hammer attack.
After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit determined last year that the identification process employed in Smith’s case violated his due process rights, the high court’s action permits him to be given a new trial. In his dissenting opinion from the majority ruling, Thomas criticized the 6th Circuit for incorrectly approving Smith’s habeas corpus petition and directing a retrial. He was joined by his fellow conservative colleague, Justice Samuel Alito.
Thomas said that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which restricts the ability of federal courts to reverse convictions from state courts, was disregarded in the lower court’s ruling.
“The Sixth Circuit’s decision is the latest in a long line of blatant AEDPA abuses,” Thomas wrote, warning that the ruling undermines state courts and creates significant challenges for victims and law enforcement.
“Retrials inflict substantial pain on crime victims” and risk letting “perpetrators of violent crimes go free,” Thomas added.
Smith was found guilty of attempting to kill Quortney Tolliver in 2015 after she was attacked at home and suffered severe facial and skull fractures from hammer blows. Weeks after the attack, Tolliver named Smith as her assailant; however, the appeals court declared this year that the identification procedure was “unduly suggestive” and untrustworthy.
Attorney General David Yost (R) of Ohio maintained the initial conviction, claiming that Smith was linked to the crime by his DNA and phone records and that the appellate court had overreached itself by requiring a new trial.
“The Sixth Circuit not only mishandled the law of eyewitness testimony, it fumbled the law that sets the rule of decision for federal habeas courts,” Yost told the high court in October.
Monday’s judgment is the second time the entire court has rejected a request to revisit the 6th Circuit’s decision; the first time was in November when it refused to entertain an initial petition.
Retrying the almost ten-year-old case, Thomas cautioned, would put a burden on resources, run the danger of losing the evidence, and cause the victim to experience more pain.
“Retrial diverts significant time and resources away from other law enforcement activities, and it is often ‘more difficult’ because of “the ‘erosion of memory’ and ‘dispersion of witnesses’ that accompany the passage of time,” Thomas wrote.
Notwithstanding these reservations, prosecutors are free to seek a retrial following the appeals court’s rules since the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
The nation’s highest court recently made headlines in a separate case.
The Supreme Court rejected Montana Republicans’ attempts to use a variant of the so-called “independent state legislature” theory to overturn two state election laws.
According to the maximalist version of the theory, which the justices rejected in 2023, state legislatures would have almost complete authority over election regulations since state courts could not stop them.
The Supreme Court ruled that state courts can perform judicial review, but the majority opinion emphasized that they do not have “free rein.”
The high court’s ruling did not establish a precise standard for identifying when the Constitution’s Elections Clause prohibits judges from interfering with state legislators’ power to oversee federal elections.