US Supreme Court to hear case of Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip's complaints about his 2004 retrial. The decision means his execution will remain on hold.

Justices are reviewing his complaints after Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said he wanted the murder conviction overturned. Drummond said the former motel manager's murder conviction should be set aside because of prosecutorial misconduct.

Glossip was convicted at the retrial of pressuring and offering to pay a co-worker kill their boss at a Best Budget Inn in 1997.

Glossip, 60, claims he is innocent. Justices stayed his execution May 5 until they could make a decision. His execution had been set for May 18 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

Glossip's attorneys said they were grateful for the Supreme Court's decision.

“Richard Glossip’s innocence case is unlike anything the country has ever seen," attorney Don Knight said. "The Oklahoma Attorney General’s concession of error is historically unprecedented."

Knight noted support from 62 Oklahoma legislators, including at least 45 death penalty supporting Republican lawmakers. He said two independent investigations "cast grave doubts on the reliability of Mr. Glossip’s conviction."

"We are gratified that the United States Supreme Court has agreed that it is worthy of full consideration and look forward to our chance to help the Justices understand why it is critical that Mr. Glossip finally be given his chance at a fair trial.”

The attorney general said he was pleased with the decision.

“Public confidence in the death penalty requires the highest standard of reliability, so it is appropriate that the U.S. Supreme Court will review this case,” Drummond said. “As Oklahoma’s chief law officer, I will continue fighting to ensure justice is done in this case and every other.”

The Supreme Court declines to hear the majority of the cases filed before it. Glossip had at least four justices agree to review his complaints for his case to move forward.

Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the decision to review the case, according to the court's order Monday. Gorsuch was previously a judge on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from Oklahoma.

Why happened to Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip?

Glossip was convicted at his retrial of the murder of his boss, Oklahoma City motel owner Barry Van Treese. Jurors chose a death sentence after agreeing he had paid to have it done.

The victim was found beaten to death in Room 102 of his motel, the Best Budget Inn, on Jan. 7, 1997.

The key witness, Justin Sneed, confessed to killing Van Treese with a baseball bat. Sneed, the motel's maintenance man, said Glossip pressured him into doing it and offered him $10,000 as payment.

The new issue in the case centers around testimony from Sneed at the retrial that he was given lithium "for some reason" in jail in 1997 after at first getting Sudafed for a cold. "I don't know why," he told jurors. "I never seen no psychiatrist or anything."

Glossip's attorneys say they now have located a sheriff's form that proves Sneed had been diagnosed in jail with bipolar disorder. Both Glossip's attorneys and the attorney general now contend prosecutors at the retrial knew Sneed's "innocuous explanation" for his lithium use was false.

Attorney general: Prosecutors elicited false testimony from key witness

Drummond told justices "the conviction in this case was obtained through false testimony that the prosecution elicited but failed to correct from the most indispensable witness."

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals already has rejected the attorney general's concerns about the retrial.

In a 5-0 decision in April, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals concluded Sneed's testimony "was not clearly false."

"Sneed was more than likely in denial of his mental health disorders, but counsel did not inquire further," a judge wrote in a 23-page opinion.

Both prosecutors at Glossip's retrial deny committing any misconduct.

The new issue arose after Glossip's attorneys and an independent counsel appointed by the attorney general reviewed for the first time prosecutors' notes on an interview with Sneed.

A botched robbery for drug money?

Glossip's attorneys claim Sneed actually killed the motel owner during a botched robbery for drug money. They claim he lied that Glossip was involved to avoid getting the death penalty himself. They claim Sneed, a meth addict, made admissions in jail and later in prison about framing Glossip and also has talked of recanting his testimony.

Glossip has become the state's most high-profile death row inmate because of the wide support for his innocence claim. Among his most outspoken supporters are conservative Republican legislators.

At a legislative hearing in October, state Rep. Kevin McDugle, R-Broken Arrow, said, "I'm a big believer in the death penalty. I'm not here to destroy it. ... (But) the process in Oklahoma is not right. ... So either we fix it or we put a moratorium on it until we fix it."

Glossip also is high profile because of a twist of fate. His 2015 lethal injection was called off after a doctor realized the wrong heart-stopping drug had been delivered.

Oklahoma did not resume executions for more than six years. The state has carried out 11 executions since resuming lethal injections on Oct. 28, 2021. The last one was in November.