Law360 (June 1, 2026, 9:53 PM EDT) -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday vacated an Eleventh Circuit opinion that denied habeas relief to a Florida man on death row, saying the appellate court erroneously considered a posttrial DNA analysis that was never seen by the jurors who convicted him.

The high court's per curiam opinion said a retest of blood from defendant Gary Whitton's boots had no bearing on whether a witness' false testimony influenced the jury's verdict.

"Because the posttrial DNA evidence was not presented to the jury (indeed, did not exist at the time of the trial), that evidence could not have influenced the jury's verdict," the opinion said.

Justice Clarence Thomas argued in a dissenting opinion that his colleagues had no good reason to vacate the Eleventh Circuit's opinion over the mere brief mention of the posttrial DNA evidence.

A Florida jury convicted Gary Whitton of the 1990 fatal beating and stabbing of his friend James Maulden, and unanimously recommended a death sentence.

The trial had included testimony from a jailhouse informant, Jake Ozio, a high school student who had been arrested for burglary and possession of a short-barreled shotgun. Ozio told jurors that he overheard Whitton confess to stabbing someone.

But Ozio falsely told jurors that he had no prior criminal history, when he had in fact been charged as a juvenile for allegedly assaulting his father, threatening his mother, and at least one other burglary, according to the opinion.

Florida state courts, including the Florida Supreme Court, denied Whitton's direct appeals. Whitton filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court, contending that Ozio's false testimony had a reasonable likelihood of affecting the jury's verdict and violated his right to due process under the high court's 1972 Giglio v. U.S. opinion.

A judge in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida denied relief, saying that the error would not have made a difference in the case because Florida juvenile crime records are typically not admissible for the purpose of attacking a witness' credibility, the opinion said.

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's opinion, but disagreed that the juvenile crime records were inadmissible. Instead, an appellate panel found that the entirety of Ozio's testimony was immaterial to the verdict.

The panel pointed to the Florida Supreme Court's finding that the evidence against Whitton was overwhelming even absent Ozio's testimony. The question that the Eleventh Circuit considered was whether the Florida Supreme Court's ruling about the evidence was reasonable.

"To answer that question, the Court of Appeals did something peculiar: It considered not only the evidence that was presented to the jury at Whitton's trial, but also evidence the jury never saw," according to the Supreme Court's opinion.

The new evidence came from the retesting of Whitton's bloody boots. At trial, a law enforcement analyst testified that the blood on Whitton's boots did not match Whitton or the victim. But the new analysis concluded that DNA in the blood matched the victim.

Justice Thomas' opinion, mostly joined by Justice Samuel Alito, argued that the majority should not have tossed the denial based on the appellate panel's mention of new DNA evidence that only served to further support Whitton's guilt anyway.

"This court now vacates the Eleventh Circuit's judgment because of one-and-a-half sentences in its opinion," he wrote. "In rejecting one of Whitton's claims — which would fail on other grounds anyway — the Eleventh Circuit mentioned a fact that was notable but certainly not dispositive to its analysis: DNA testing had since further confirmed that Whitton is guilty."

Whitton is represented by Linda McDermott, Sean Gunn and John Abatecola of the Office of the Federal Public Defender of the Northern District of Florida, by Spencer Faber, Drew Needham and Zachary Antin of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, and by Mark Olive of the Law Offices of Mark E. Olive PA.

The government is represented by James Uthmeier, Jeffrey DeSousa and Christopher Baum of the Florida Attorney General's Office.

The case is Gary Richard Whitton v. Ricky D. Dixon, case number 25-580, in the U.S. Supreme Court.

--Editing by Karin Roberts.

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