Supreme Court Sends Florida Death Row Case Back

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a federal appeals court improperly considered evidence not presented to a jury when reviewing the case of a Florida death row inmate, sending the matter back for further proceedings. The unsigned decision represents a procedural victory for Gary Whitton, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1992 for the killing of James Maulden.

The central issue concerned testimony from a jailhouse informant, Jake Ozio, who claimed he heard Whitton confess to the crime. Ozio testified that he had no prior criminal record, a statement later shown to be false based on records prosecutors possessed at the time. Whitton argued this violated his constitutional rights under the precedent set by Giglio v. United States, which prohibits prosecutors from knowingly presenting false testimony.

While the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit agreed the testimony was false and known to be so by the state, it upheld the conviction. In its reasoning, the appellate court cited what it called overwhelming evidence of guilt, including DNA test results from 2002 that linked bloodstains on Whitton’s boots to the victim. That DNA evidence was not...