Sowden v. United States
The Supreme Court declined to hear California's appeal after the Ninth Circuit overturned Bobby Joe Maxwell's 1984 murder convictions, finding a state court had unreasonably credited testimony from a jailhouse informant known for fabricating confessions.
Justice Sotomayor wrote separately to explain why she agreed with denying review, while Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Alito, dissented, arguing the Ninth Circuit had improperly second-guessed the state court's factual findings and stretched due process law.
How it got here: A federal district court denied Maxwell's habeas petition, the Ninth Circuit reversed and set aside his convictions, and California asked the Supreme Court to review that reversal.
The Case in Depth
What happened
In the late 1970s, ten homeless men were murdered in downtown Los Angeles in the "Skid Row Stabber" killings. Bobby Joe Maxwell was convicted in 1984 of two murders based partly on testimony from jailhouse informant Sidney Storch, who claimed Maxwell confessed to him. Maxwell later argued Storch had lied, pointing to Storch's long history of fabricating other inmates' confessions for personal benefit.
The question before the Court
Should the Supreme Court have stepped in after a federal appeals court threw out a decades-old murder conviction over a jailhouse informant's testimony?
Why it matters
The decision leaves in place a Ninth Circuit ruling that could free or force a retrial of a man convicted decades ago based partly on a jailhouse informant's testimony, at a point when witnesses and evidence may no longer be available. It also highlights ongoing disagreement among justices over how much deference federal courts must give to state courts' factual findings in habeas cases.
What changes now
Because the Supreme Court denied review, the Ninth Circuit's ruling overturning Maxwell's convictions stands. The case returns to the lower courts, where California may attempt to retry Maxwell decades after the crimes, a task both opinions note may be complicated by lost witnesses and evidence. This order does not resolve the underlying habeas dispute on the merits at the Supreme Court level and sets no new nationwide rule.
What this does not decide
Denying certiorari does not mean the Supreme Court endorsed the Ninth Circuit's reasoning as correct; it only means the Court chose not to review the case. The order does not establish any new legal rule on how federal courts should evaluate informant credibility or apply the habeas deference standard.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Sotomayor
Sotomayor wrote to explain why she agreed with denying review, emphasizing that the Ninth Circuit had carefully documented overwhelming evidence that the informant was a habitual fabricator who used the same method to falsely implicate other defendants. She argued mere disagreement with a fact-bound lower court ruling is not a sufficient reason to grant certiorari.
Dissent — Justice Scalia
“It is a regrettable reality that some federal judges like to second-guess state courts.”Scalia's closing criticism of the Ninth Circuit's review of the state court's findings.
Scalia argued the Ninth Circuit ignored the deferential habeas standard by relying on circumstantial evidence that did not compel finding the informant lied about Maxwell specifically, and that it wrongly expanded due process doctrine beyond what the Court has ever held. He would have summarily reversed the Ninth Circuit and reinstated the convictions.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The controlling federal habeas law requires courts to defer to a state court's factual findings unless those findings were based on an unreasonable determination of the facts given the evidence presented in the state proceeding.
- Justice Sotomayor concluded that the Ninth Circuit had properly applied this deferential standard, pointing to extensive evidence that the informant was a documented serial fabricator who used the same method he was accused of using against Maxwell.
- She reasoned that mere disagreement with a lower court's fact-bound conclusion is not, by itself, a reason for the Supreme Court to grant review.
- Justice Scalia's dissent argued the evidence relied on was only circumstantial and did not compel the conclusion that the informant lied specifically about Maxwell's confession, so the state court's finding was not unreasonable.
- The dissent further argued the Ninth Circuit wrongly expanded due process protections by suggesting a conviction could be overturned for false testimony even without the prosecution knowing it was false, a rule the Supreme Court had never adopted.