The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear Joe Exotic's appeal of his 2019 murder-for-hire conviction, closing what may be the final legal avenue for the flamboyant Netflix star who has spent years trying to escape his 21-year prison sentence.
According to The Hill, the former zookeeper, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was convicted for his role in a plot to kill rival animal rights activist Carole Baskin, another star of Netflix's "Tiger King" documentary series. The Justice Department didn't even bother responding to his petition. That tells you how seriously the government took his chances.
At Maldonado-Passage's trial in 2019, prosecutors laid out a case that went well beyond a single murder-for-hire scheme. They said he hired two men to kill Baskin, one of whom turned out to be an undercover FBI agent. He was also convicted of falsifying wildlife records and violating the Endangered Species Act. Prosecutors said he personally shot and killed five tigers in October 2017 and sold and offered to sell tiger cubs in interstate commerce.
His lawyer, Alexander Roots, framed the entire saga as a blood feud between eccentric rivals. In the petition to the court, Roots described it as an "intense personal, litigation, operational, and even political, rivalry between two of America's two largest big cat exhibitors."
Roots argued that trial errors warranted review, writing:
"By denying any hearing and by refusing to evaluate the evidence as a whole, the lower courts departed from principles that safeguard every criminal prosecution in the Nation."
The Supreme Court disagreed. Or rather, it declined to disagree, which in Supreme Court terms amounts to the same thing.
If Joe Exotic's legal strategy has been a dead end, his political strategy has been nothing if not persistent. He first asked President Trump for a pardon during Trump's first term, sending a handwritten letter to the White House in September 2020. Trump said at the time he would "take a look."
When that didn't materialize, Maldonado-Passage pivoted to the other party, asking Biden for a pardon in 2021 with no success. Last year, he renewed his request to Trump after garnering support from public figures, including Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.).
The man knows how to work a room, even from behind bars.
While Maldonado-Passage cycled through pardon requests and legal appeals, Carole Baskin was busy reshaping the regulatory landscape. Baskin, who founded the Florida rescue facility Big Cat Rescue, was a major advocate of the Big Cat Public Safety Act. Former President Biden signed it into law in 2022, limiting possession of big cats and cross-breeds to wildlife sanctuaries, state universities, and certified zoos, among other changes.
The law effectively codified the end of the world Joe Exotic built. His rival didn't just survive his alleged murder plot. She helped rewrite the rules of the industry that made him famous.
There's a tendency in American culture to turn criminals into folk heroes if the story is entertaining enough. "Tiger King" landed during COVID lockdowns, when the entire country was bored, anxious, and looking for a distraction. Joe Exotic delivered. He was loud, outrageous, and easy to root for if you squinted hard enough and ignored the dead tigers.
But the legal system isn't Netflix. It doesn't care about your brand or your fan base or how many people watched your documentary. A man was convicted of trying to have someone killed. He shot five tigers. He trafficked in endangered animals. The courts reviewed his case at every level and found no reason to disturb the verdict.
The circus may have been entertaining. The sentence is not.
With the Supreme Court's refusal to hear his appeal and no pardon forthcoming from any administration, Maldonado-Passage is running out of exits. The 21-year sentence stands. The cameras moved on a long time ago. The man who built a kingdom on spectacle now sits in a cell where nobody is watching.