In an uncommon transfer, the U.S. Supreme Court docket has halted the execution of Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma inmate whose execution had been scheduled for subsequent week though the state’s personal lawyer common has mentioned he deserves a brand new trial.
Glossip was convicted in 1998 of the homicide of his boss, Barry Van Treese. Prosecutors claimed that Glossip instructed then-19-year Justin Sneed—a upkeep man on the motel the place Glossip labored—to kill Van Treese as a part of a fancy murder-for-hire scheme. Sneed’s testimony was central to the prosecution’s case, and Sneed himself agreed to testify as a part of a plea deal that allowed him to keep away from the dying penalty.
Quickly after his conviction, issues with the case towards Glossip—and notably with Sneed’s testimony—started to point out. Glossip’s conviction was overturned in 2001, after which he was re-convicted and re-sentenced to dying three years later.
Within the years following his second conviction, Glossip has narrowly escaped execution a number of occasions, coming so shut as to have acquired three separate “final” meals earlier than being spared by last-minute stays.
Over the previous a number of years, there have been growing calls to reexamine his case. In 2022, a probe sought by a gaggle of bipartisan legislators concluded that the state’s investigation was severely flawed.
“Contemplating the information we uncovered, and that there exists no bodily forensic proof or credible corroborating testimony linking Glossip to the crime, our conclusion is that no cheap juror listening to the entire document would have convicted Richard Glossip of first-degree homicide,” mentioned investigator Stan Perry in a June 2022 press launch.
When a separate investigation reached related conclusions final month, Oklahoma Lawyer Normal Gentner Drummond introduced that he had formally filed for Glossip to have his conviction overturned and for him to obtain a brand new trial.
“After thorough and severe deliberation, I’ve concluded that I can not stand behind the homicide conviction and dying sentence of Richard Glossip,” Drummond defined in an April sixth assertion. “This isn’t to say I consider he’s harmless. Nevertheless, it’s important that Oklahomans have absolute religion that the dying penalty is run pretty and with certainty.”
It did not appear to work. On April 20, an appeals courtroom denied Drummond’s movement. Lower than per week later, a parole board additionally declined to grant Glossip clemency.
However then, final Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court docket stepped in. The Court docket has stayed Glossip’s upcoming execution, pending a future determination as as to if the Court docket will formally take up the case. Whereas it’s uncommon for the Supreme Court docket to contemplate dying penalty instances, it’s also uncommon for a state lawyer common to confess {that a} death-row prisoner didn’t obtain a good trial.
“There has by no means been an execution within the historical past of this nation the place the state and the protection agreed that the defendant was not afforded a good trial,” state Rep. Kevin McDugle (R–Damaged Arrow) mentioned on Thursday. “Oklahoma can not turn out to be the primary.”
