A U.S. Supreme Court decision on bureaucratic overreach doesn’t give South Dakota’s lone death row inmate another chance to argue for a new trial or sentence, according to a ruling from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals released on Monday.

Briley Piper, 46, was sentenced to death by a judge for the murder of Chester Allan Poage. Piper, Elijah Page and Darrell Hoadley tortured and killed Poage in 2000 near Spearfish. Page was executed in 2007; Hoadley remains in prison with a life sentence.

South Dakota has had as many as five people on death row since the punishment was reinstituted after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it constitutional in 1976 in the case of Gregg vs. Georgia. Page was the first person executed in the state after that ruling, and four other men have been put to death since.

Piper successfully argued to have his death sentence from a judge reviewed by a jury, which again sentenced him to death in 2011.

Piper has since lost appeals at the state Supreme Court and in U.S. District Court. Last year, he again appealed to federal court to argue that his sentence ought to be thrown out.

He relied in part on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loper Bright decision. That opinion gave judges greater authority to challenge bureaucratic regulatory decisions. The landmark decision upended a four-decade precedent that courts should defer to federal agencies’ interpretation of laws such as the Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act.

Piper’s attorneys said Loper Bright also gave federal judges more leeway in reviewing state court decisions in death penalty cases. Federal law limits how deeply federal judges can delve into questions of constitutional rights in death row cases after state courts address them, but Piper’s lawyers — along with lawyers for a handful of other death row inmates around the U.S. — have argued that state courts are akin to bureaucratic rulemakers and that their rulings should be fully open to scrutiny.

U.S. District Judge Roberto Lange rejected that argument in Piper’s case in March 2025, a month after his lawyers raised it. Piper appealed to the 8th U.S. Circuit.

In its Monday ruling, the appeals court ruled against Piper’s Loper Bright claim. 

“Every court to address this claim disagrees” with the position argued by Piper’s attorneys, the ruling says, listing nine separate death penalty cases where similar arguments were made.

The 8th Circuit also rejected five other assertions from Piper, including that his 2001 guilty plea wasn’t voluntary and that his defense lawyers failed to consider the possibility that Piper suffers from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder — his lawyers did explore the issue, the appeals court found.

Piper could appeal the 8th Circuit’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. His attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley, whose office represents the state in Piper’s appeal, applauded the decision in a Monday statement.

“Briley Piper has never accepted responsibility for his actions and has consistently tried to shift blame onto others for his sentence,” Jackley wrote. “The 8th Circuit’s rejection of his appeal marks an important step toward final justice for Chester Poage and his family.”