Justice Sotomayor Criticizes SCOTUS for Ignoring Precedents in Teen Pizza Driver Murder Case, Highlighting Buried Evidence Concerns

Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed a strong dissent on Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court opted not to review the case of a man serving a life sentence for the 1998 murder of a teenage pizza delivery driver in Louisiana. She criticized her fellow justices for failing to “enforce its own precedents.”

Her dissent was supported by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Sotomayor contended that it was illogical for the Supreme Court to have previously spared James Skinner’s co-defendant from death row, yet leave Skinner to serve life without parole. Both men were convicted of the murder of 16-year-old Eric Walber based on “similar sets of evidence, which centered on the same two eyewitness accounts.”

“Equal justice under law, inscribed on this Court’s building, mandates that two co-defendants, found guilty of the same crime and presenting nearly identical constitutional claims, receive consistent responses from the courts,” Sotomayor stated. “Here, due to the Louisiana courts’ refusal to apply this Court’s Brady precedents, Skinner faces the prospect of spending his life behind bars while [Michael] Wearry is free,” she continued. “As the Court declines to uphold its own precedents, I respectfully dissent from the denial of certiorari.”

In the landmark Brady v. Maryland decision, prosecutors are required to disclose “Brady material,” evidence that could exonerate or benefit the defense. Withholding such evidence, deemed crucial for determining guilt or punishment, infringes on a defendant’s constitutional right to due process, as established by the Supreme Court in 1963.

The Supreme Court found the Brady violations in Michael Wearry’s case to be so severe that it overturned his conviction and death sentence in 2016, mandating a new trial. A significant issue was the state’s concealment of information about its key witness, a “jailhouse snitch” named Sam Scott, who had, two years post-murder, minimized his own involvement in Walber’s death while implicating Wearry, Skinner, and three others.

That story not only changed, but was also wrong about basic facts. For instance, the witness claimed Walber was shot to death — but the evidence showed that on that April 1998 day, the Albany High School football player was filling in for someone who didn’t show up for work at Pizza Express and was beaten and run over by his own car, local CBS affiliate WAFB reported. Skinner was allegedly behind the wheel.

Further explaining why the Supreme Court found Scott’s account “dubious,” one of his versions of the crime said Randy Hutchinson — who had “undergone knee surgery to repair a ruptured patellar tendon” nine days earlier — ran after the pizza delivery driver.

Worse yet, Scott had made statements behind bars that he wanted to “‘make sure [Wearry] gets the needle cause he jacked over me,’” an inmate reported. Neither the defense nor the jury were aware of this evidence.

“Beyond doubt, the newly revealed evidence suffices to undermine confidence in Wearry’s conviction,” the Supreme Court, except for Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, concluded at the time. “The State’s trial evidence resembles a house of cards, built on the jury crediting Scott’s account rather than Wearry’s alibi.”

But there wouldn’t be another trial, because Louisiana prosecutors, realizing the prospect of persuading a jury to convict against this backdrop was slim, reached a deal with Wearry, one which would enable him to walk free on time served in 2023.

As part of that deal, Wearry pleaded guilty to manslaughter, something he had “mixed feelings about,” according to his Innocence Project attorney.

“He was not present at the crime and he had nothing to do with it. But, would you roll the dice in front of an all-white jury where the community still remembers the crime?” Jim Mayer asked.

On Monday, Sotomayor wanted to know why Wearry is free but Skinner isn’t entitled to a new trial, when he was “subject to the same constitutional violations that Wearry was (and more),” and was sentenced to life without parole on the strength of an 11-1 jury verdict after his first trial ended with a hung jury.

“[H]e is entitled to the same relief that Wearry received. The Louisiana courts denied him that relief. Rather than leaving that injustice in place, the Court should have granted certiorari to uphold its obligations to ensure the supremacy of its own decisions and to treat like defendants alike,” the justice said, noting that Skinner discovered even more evidence from police records — beyond the known Brady violations — after hiring an attorney.