WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Monday it will hear an appeal from death row Oklahoma inmate Richard Glossip, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence and staved off multiple state attempts to execute him.
Glossip was convicted in 1997 of murder-for-hire of the owner of the motel where he worked.
The case will not be heard until the fall.
Glossip now has the support of the state’s Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, who says Glossip’s life should be spared because he did not receive a fair trial.
The Supreme Court blocked the latest attempt to execute Glossip in early May.
Despite Drummond’s misgivings about the trial, an Oklahoma appeals court upheld Glossip’s conviction, and the state’s Pardons and Parole Board deadlocked in a vote to grant him clemency.
But Drummond has also said he does not believe Glossip is innocent of the 1997 murder of his former boss, Barry Van Treese. Another man, Justin Sneed, admitted to robbing and killing Van Treese after Glossip promised to kill him pay. $10,000. Sneed received a life sentence in exchange for his testimony and was the key witness against Glossip.
Two separate, independent investigations have revealed problems with the prosecution’s case.
Drummond said Sneed lied on the witness stand about his psychiatric condition and why he was taking the mood-stabilizing drug lithium, and that prosecutors knew Sneed was lying.
Evidence was also destroyed, Drummond said.
Some Republican lawmakers who support the death penalty have joined the growing chorus of Glossip supporters seeking to overturn his conviction.
Glossip’s case has been before the Supreme Court before. He was granted a reprieve in 2015, although the court later convicted him 5-4 in a case involving the drugs used in fatal executions.
It’s only a few hours before Glossip is executed three times. His last scheduled execution, in September 2015, was halted just before he was to be led to the death chamber when prison officials realized they had been given the wrong deadly drug. This confusion led to a nearly seven-year moratorium on the death penalty in Oklahoma.
Glossip’s case attracted international attention after actor Susan Sarandon – who won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Sister Helen Prejean in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking – took up his real-life case. Prejean himself has served as Glossip’s spiritual advisor and regularly visited him in prison. His case was also featured in the 2017 documentary “Killing Richard Glossip.”
It is extremely rare for a prosecutor to argue against the execution of a death row inmate. In a situation similar to that of Glossip a year ago, the justices ordered a Texas appeals court to reexamine the case of a death row inmate who also had the support of prosecutors. The inmate, Areli Escobar, had been convicted and sentenced to death based on forensic evidence that a judge later found to be flawed.
But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the judge’s order for a new trial, even though the newly elected prosecutor in Travis County, Texas, no longer supported the conviction. When Escobar appealed to the Supreme Court, the prosecutor supported his bid. Escobar did not face imminent execution.
The Supreme Court will hear Glossip’s case with just eight judges. Judge Neil Gorsuch is not participating, presumably because he was involved in an earlier phase of the case when he was an appellate judge.
The Supreme Court has been considering Glossip’s appeal since late September. The reason for the delay in acting on it is unclear.
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