Washington — It has been almost a decade because the Supreme Courtroom first took up Oklahoma demise row inmate Richard Glossip’s unsuccessful problem to the state’s technique of execution. On Wednesday, Glossip can be again on the Supreme Courtroom, this time because the justices contemplate whether or not to toss out his conviction altogether and grant him a brand new trial.
Within the 20 years since Glossip, 61, was convicted in a murder-for-hire scheme and sentenced to demise, he has had 9 execution dates scheduled and eaten his “final meal” thrice. However in every of these situations, his executions have been postpone and his life spared.
The newest reprieve got here final 12 months, when the excessive courtroom agreed to dam his demise by deadly injection. Months later, the justices took up his bid for a brand new trial after Oklahoma’s prime legislation enforcement official argued his conviction and sentence shouldn’t stand.
When the Supreme Courtroom convenes for oral arguments, legal professionals for Lawyer Common Gentner Drummond and Glossip, each represented by former solicitors normal, will urge the justices to grant his bid for a brand new trial. The courtroom appointed an outdoor lawyer, Christopher Michel, to argue in favor of upholding Glossip’s conviction and demise sentence.
Drummond, a Republican, has argued in courtroom papers that the state just lately uncovered proof that had been suppressed, revealing not solely that prosecutors’ key witness in opposition to Glossip lied on the stand, however that they “knowingly elicited” his false testimony and didn’t right the file.
“Our system of justice locations superior powers and duties within the fingers of prosecutors. When these prosecutors themselves acknowledge that they’ve overstepped, that judgment can’t be dismissed as simply one other litigation place,” Drummond advised the Supreme Courtroom in a submitting.
Glossip’s conviction and the legal professional normal’s bid for reduction
Oklahoma Division of Corrections through AP
Glossip was convicted within the 1997 killing of Barry Van Treese, the proprietor of the Oklahoma Metropolis motel the place he labored. He was discovered responsible in two completely different trials (his first conviction was overturned due to ineffective help of counsel). In each, prosecutors relied on the testimony of his co-defendant, Justin Sneed, who claimed Glossip paid him $10,000 to homicide Van Treese.
Sneed admitted to robbing and bludgeoning Van Treese and was sentenced to life in jail. Glossip has denied involvement within the homicide and maintained his innocence.
Throughout his second trial, Sneed advised the lead prosecutor that he had by no means seen a psychiatrist, however was given lithium after he was arrested. Years later, in 2022, the state unearthed handwritten notes from the prosecutor in a banker’s field, which Drummond mentioned referred to as into query Sneed’s credibility as a witness.
The notes indicated that Sneed advised the prosecutor he was given lithium after seeing a jailhouse psychiatrist and was identified with bipolar dysfunction, in response to courtroom papers. However neither his prognosis nor therapy by the psychiatrist have been disclosed to Glossip’s protection group, indicating that the prosecutor elicited false testimony on the matter, Drummond wrote in courtroom filings.
In gentle of the findings, the legal professional normal disclosed the field’s supplies to Glossip and employed an unbiased counsel to evaluate the case. The examination, which concluded in April 2023, discovered that if the protection knew that Sneed had been identified as bipolar and prescribed lithium, they might’ve “impeached Sneed’s credibility, reminiscence and truthfulness.” The unbiased counsel concluded that Glossip was “disadvantaged of a good trial.”
The state agreed that among the errors dedicated in the course of the trial rendered Glossip’s conviction and capital sentence flawed, and requested the Oklahoma Courtroom of Felony Appeals put aside his conviction and order a brand new trial.
However the state courtroom denied the reduction and ordered the state to execute Glossip. A request for clemency to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board additionally failed.
Glossip turned to the Supreme Courtroom, which in Could 2023 granted a keep of his execution and, in January, agreed to take up his case. Justice Neil Gorsuch has recused himself, seemingly due to earlier proceedings when he was a decide on the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the tenth Circuit.
Drummond advised the Supreme Courtroom in a submitting that the errors recognized by the unbiased counsel are “critical situations of prosecutorial misconduct” that should be remedied.
The case has divided state attorneys normal and native and federal prosecutors. In a single submitting with the Supreme Courtroom, attorneys normal from seven states are calling for Glossip’s conviction to be upheld. They mentioned the Oklahoma Felony Courtroom of Appeals, the state’s courtroom of final resort for prison issues, primarily based its ruling on state legislation and must be revered by the federal courts.
However the group of prosecutors is asking on the Supreme Courtroom to grant Glossip reduction, arguing that he’s at “imminent danger” of being wrongfully executed.
“Prosecutions should be premised upon an sincere and fully clear file to guard societal confidence within the verdict and the demise sentence,” they mentioned in a submitting in assist of Glossip.
Van Treese’s household, in the meantime, contests the notion that the prosecution hid info from the protection. As an alternative, they mentioned in a transient that the prosecutor’s notes mirror Sneed recounting what the protection group was asking him.
His spouse, son and sister instructed that there could also be political motivations underlying Drummond’s “confession of error,” on condition that demise penalty circumstances and high-profile prosecutions can fire up robust emotions.
“It could not be shocking to search out that one politically elected official would possibly view the info of a case a method, whereas one other would possibly go in a distinct route,” they mentioned. “But when officers are free to easily confess ‘error’ as a result of they disagree with a case’s consequence, belief within the prison justice system turns into the casualty.”
A choice within the case is predicted by the top of June 2025.
