The Supreme Court declined Monday to review a lower court ruling that overturned the conviction of David M. Smith, an Ohio man sentenced to 22 years for a brutal hammer attack, prompting a stern rebuke from Justice Clarence Thomas.
The high court’s move allows Smith to receive a new trial after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit found the identification procedure used in his case violated his due process rights last year. Thomas, joined by his fellow conservative colleague Justice Samuel Alito, dissented from the majority’s decision, criticizing the 6th Circuit for improperly granting Smith’s habeas corpus petition and ordering a retrial.
Thomas argued the lower court’s decision ignored the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which limits federal courts’ power to overturn state court convictions.
“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 convicted of the 2015 attempted murder of Quortney Tolliver, who was attacked in her home and left with severe skull and facial fractures caused by hammer strikes. Tolliver identified Smith as her attacker weeks after the assault, but the appeals court ruled last year that the identification process was “unduly suggestive” and unreliable.
Ohio Attorney General David Yost (R) defended the original conviction, arguing that Smith’s DNA and phone records tied him to the crime and that the appeals court improperly overstepped its authority by ordering 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.
The full court previously declined to take up an initial petition in November, making Monday’s decision the second rejection to reconsider the 6th Circuit’s ruling.
Thomas warned that retrying the nearly decade-old case would strain resources, risk the loss of evidence, and retraumatize the victim.
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“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.
Despite these concerns, the Supreme Court’s decision not to take up the case leaves prosecutors to pursue a retrial under the appeals court’s guidelines.