The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to reconsider a Texas inmate's contention that he received inadequate counsel before being sentenced to death, about two years after the high court had sent the case back to the Lone Star State for another look.

The Supreme Court's three liberal justices dissented, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor contending that the high court is ignoring its own legal precedent by declining to consider the arguments by Texas death row inmate Terence Andrus, according to her dissenting opinion.

"Andrus' case cries out for intervention," Justice Sotomayor wrote. "It is particularly vital that this court act when necessary to protect against defiance of its precedents."

A jury sentenced Andrus to death after a court found that he fatally shot two people in 2008 during an attempted carjacking.

Andrus contended that his lawyer at the time failed to present information about his childhood that might have mitigated his sentence, such as that his mother sold drugs, engaged in sex work, beat him and used drugs in front of him; that one of her boyfriends raped his half-sister; and that he served as a parental figure to his younger siblings before he was even a teenager, according to court documents.

In sending the case back to Texas in 2020, the Supreme Court also noted that Andrus' attorney failed to present evidence of his client's mental health issues, and that the lawyer made the case worse for his client by failing to contradict the mother's testimony that Andrus had grown up in a stable family setting and had gotten into trouble in spite of his family's best efforts, according to Justice Sotomayor's dissent.

But when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reviewed the case, it split 5-4 against Andrus on whether the lawyer's performance was so bad it changed the outcome of the case, prompting him to return to the Supreme Court.

The high court's majority did not give a reason for opting against reviewing Andrus' petition for certiorari, rejecting it with a one-sentence order.

But Justice Sotomayor asserted that the high court needed to hear the case to make clear that lower courts may not "clearly and directly contravene" a decision by the Supreme Court.

"Such defiance of vertical stare decisis, if allowed to stand, substantially erodes confidence in the functioning of the legal system," she wrote. "That is precisely what this court permits today."

Gretchen Sims Sween, an attorney representing Andrus, told Law360 on Monday that it is "shocking" that the Supreme Court would not step in to defend its own authority.

"This outcome assaults the very foundation of the rule of law and the concept of vertical stare decisis upon which a federal system, under one national constitution, depends," she said.

Counsel for Texas could not be reached for comment Monday.

Andrus is represented by Gretchen Sims Sween of Sween Law, and Clifford M. Sloan and Kathleen Shelton.

Texas is represented by Charann Thompson, Brian Middleton and Jason Bennyhoff of the Fort Bend County District Attorney's Office.

The case is Andrus v. Texas, case number 21-6001, before the Supreme Court of the United States.

--Editing by Adam LoBelia.