Richard Glossip has had a "last meal" three times. The Oklahoma death row prisoner has been given nine different execution dates for a crime he says he did not commit, and right now it's uncertain if he'll be assigned a 10th.
Most recently, the Supreme Court granted a stay of execution this month after Oklahoma's attorney general made a plea to spare his life. Glossip's cause has been championed by celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Dr. Phil, as well as lawmakers from both parties. Some conservatives say the case, intertwined with other Oklahoma death penalty controversies across the last decade, has made them reconsider their stance on capital punishment.
Oklahoma State Penitentiary death row inmate Richard Glossip is shown in this 2007 handout photo provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections via Reuters
Originally scheduled for May 18, the execution is on hold indefinitely. The Oklahoma Department of Corrections said it has removed Glossip, who was convicted of arranging a 1997 murder of a motel owner in Oklahoma City and has been in prison for almost 25 years, from execution protocol after the high court's decision.
In a rare move that found a prosecutor agreeing with defense attorneys, Oklahoma Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond said it would be an "unthinkable" error if the execution was allowed to continue. Drummond was one of the parties who asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, citing new evidence that may undermine the state's original conviction. He now argues that Glossip's conviction is "unsustainable" and "a new trial imperative."
Drummond's prominent effort is only the latest attempt to stop the execution.
Brett Farley, who serves as the executive director for Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, helped launch a group called Oklahoma Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty in November. Farley said the support from conservative lawmakers in the state to reexamine Glossip's case has been unprecedented.
"Forty Republican lawmakers asked the state to take a second look," Farley. "That's unheard of and I believe it's because we pride ourselves as Americans on due process. Richard Glossip didn't get anything close to that," he told the PBS NewsHour.
Why is Richard Glossip on death row?
The Oklahoma State Penitentiary where Richard Glossip is set to be executed in 2015 is seen in McAlester, Oklahoma. Photo by Nick Oxford/Reuters
Glossip, now 60, was convicted of arranging the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, the owner of a motel in Oklahoma City where Glossip worked as a manager. Prosecutors argued that Glossip promised to pay handyman Justin Sneed $10,000 to kill Van Treese.
Sneed ultimately pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and received a life sentence in exchange for his testimony against Glossip. Sneed was sentenced to life in prison without parole for fatally beating Van Treese, while Glossip was sentenced to death.
But a pair of investigations, including a recent report from the state attorney general's office, cast doubt on Glossip's conviction, and his lawyers and supporters argue that Sneed alone was responsible for the killing.
Don Knight, Glossip's attorney, expressed appreciation for the court's decision in early May to halt the "unlawful execution."
"There is nothing more distressing than contemplating the execution of a man who the state now acknowledges never received a fair trial," Knight said in a statement.
Why is the case being re-examined? What happened at trial?
Advocates for Glossip argue that new details have been uncovered pointing to multiple missteps and actions made by the state's prosecution and suggest there isn't enough evidence to warrant a conviction or death sentence.
At the request of Oklahoma lawmakers, law firm Reed Smith conducted an independent investigation last year that examined the developments that led to Glossip's 1998 guilty verdict. The firm's findings, compiled in a 343-page report and released last June, raised significant concerns regarding Glossip's case and conviction. Among the takeaways:
- Investigators interviewed people incarcerated with Sneed on unrelated charges; they learned that Sneed said he had acted alone to rob Van Treese and that he and his girlfriend planned to use the stolen money to buy drugs.
- But none of these accounts were heard by the jurors who convicted Glossip and sentenced him to death.
- Sneed also has a history of mental illness, which was not disclosed at the time during Glossip's trial.
- A recently discovered memo in the district attorney's office also detailed how the trial prosecutor worked behind the scenes with Sneed's lawyer to feed his client information before he testified.
In April, Drummond disclosed the findings of a separate independent counsel – whom he had appointed – and said it had "raised doubts about the conviction."
"After thorough and serious consideration, I have concluded that I cannot support the murder conviction and death sentence of Richard Glossip," Drummond stated.
On April 6, Drummond filed a motion urging an Oklahoma appeals court to overturn the conviction and return the case to federal district court.
Drummond did add that this move "does not imply that I believe he is innocent."
"However, it is crucial for Oklahomans to have absolute confidence that the death penalty is administered fairly and with certainty," he wrote.
Could Glossip get a new trial?
On April 20, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Drummond's request and upheld Glossip's murder conviction. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board declined to recommend clemency days later, as the panel was deadlocked with a 2-2 vote.
Glossip's attorneys then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution, to which Drummond added his support. In a May 1 request, they challenged his conviction, citing grounds such as prosecutors' failure to disclose evidence about Sneed to Glossip's defense counsel. They claimed that proceeding with the execution would not only inflict obvious and irreversible harm upon Glossip, but also harm Oklahoma itself.
"The stakes could hardly be higher and the consequences of an unjust result irreversible," the attorneys wrote in their filing.
The Supreme Court granted a stay on May 5. Now advocates for Glossip say they are expecting a response from the high court in June about whether the justices recommend overturning Glossip's sentence.
Protestors and family members gather to demonstrate against the scheduled execution of death row inmate Richard Glossip outside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma, in September 2015. Photo by Nick Oxford/Reuters
Glossip has narrowly escaped death on multiple occasions, including in 2014 and 2015, when the state's supply of lethal drugs ran low and the Supreme Court stayed all pending executions.
In June 2015, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge brought by Glossip and two other death row prisoners to Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol, which had faced scrutiny due to botched executions. The court ruled 5-4 that the state's method of execution did not violate the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Glossip's execution scheduled for September of that year was then delayed at the 11th hour because one of the drugs they would have used was not approved. Days later, executions in Oklahoma were halted indefinitely.
That moratorium ended in 2021. Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who supports capital punishment, has pushed the Oklahoma Department of Corrections to resume executions. Stitt, whose office did not respond to two requests for comment, has also twice delayed Glossip's execution while a court evaluated his appeal. But when a parole board was split on whether to recommend clemency in April, Stitt said "we're going to follow the law," suggesting he would not pursue another stay.
Who's raising concerns?
Some Republican state officials have joined the chorus of criticism lobbied against the case.
State Rep. J.J. Humphrey, a Republican, has said he believes Glossip's prosecutors broke the law to get Glossip convicted.
"I am just sickened," Humphrey said of the Oklahoma prosecutors who charged Glossip a quarter century ago. "These people should be ashamed. They should be arrested. And I'm going to push. I hope I get to be the person putting handcuffs on them."
For others, Richard Glossip represents something bigger than the specific details of his case or his long odyssey in the criminal justice system.
Farley, of Oklahoma Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, said the state has forced its way into the spotlight for death penalty cases with its eagerness to resume executing people on death row. The state announced last July that it had scheduled 25 execution dates between August 2022 and December 2024.
Farley said he believes that resuming executions while also ignoring 40 recommendations made by the Oklahoma Death Penalty Commission has made Oklahoma one of the worst offenders of death row malpractice.
"All these factors paint a grim picture," Farley said. He added that some state leaders and district attorneys have a mindset that people who have been executed despite questions of their guilt are collateral damage, that their deaths "are acceptable mistakes."
"That's unjust and needs to change."