Today, the Supreme Court ruled in the high-profile innocence case of Richard Glossip that Oklahoma must grant him a new trial because his conviction and death sentence were tainted by the prosecution misconduct at his capital trial. The Court held that it was unconstitutional for the prosecutor to have knowingly elicited false testimony and suppress evidence compromising its key witness in the case.
In 2023, as Mr. Glossip faced his ninth execution date for a crime he has consistently maintained he did not commit, the Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond made the extraordinary decision to ask the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to stop the execution. Although the Attorney General conceded that prosecutors had violated their constitutional duties when they used false evidence against Mr. Glossip and suppressed other evidence, the state court refused to intervene. The United States Supreme Court stayed the impending execution and agreed to Mr. Glossip’s and the Oklahoma Attorney General’s joint request to hear the case.
“The prospect of executing an individual based on a conviction that the State’s chief law enforcement officer believes, after careful scrutiny, was secured by prosecutorial misconduct in violation of due process,” Mr. Drummond wrote in his brief, “is all but unthinkable.” Responding to lawyers appointed to defend the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, who urged the Court to allow Mr. Glossip’s conviction and death sentence to stand merely on procedural grounds, the Attorney General pleaded that “[o]ur system of justice places awesome powers and responsibilities in the hands of prosecutors. When those prosecutors themselves recognize that they have overstepped, that judgment cannot be dismissed as just another litigation position.”
In today’s decision, the Supreme Court agreed with Mr. Glossip and the Oklahoma Attorney General. The Court found that “the only direct evidence of Glossip’s guilt of capital murder” was given by a witness whose statements on the witness stand “the prosecution knew . . . were false as he testified to them.” The suppression of additional evidence, the Court said, only served to “reinforce our conclusion” that Mr. Glossip’s right to due process had been violated. The Court found that the due process violation in the case was so clear and the evidence establishing it so “ample” that it ordered that Mr. Glossip be given a new trial.
Mr. Glossip was convicted in 2004 for his alleged role in the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, the owner of a motel where Mr. Glossip worked. No physical evidence linked Mr. Glossip to the crime and he has maintained his innocence.
An independent review commissioned by a bipartisan group of state legislators found that the State repeatedly failed to provide—and even destroyed—substantial evidence in the case.
The State’s case against Mr. Glossip centered around the testimony of then 19-year-old Justin Sneed. The independent review revealed that Mr. Sneed had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed lithium while in jail. At trial, he denied ever seeing a psychiatrist and Mr. Glossip’s attorneys were not made aware of his condition.
“The state’s murder case against Glossip was not particularly strong and would have been, in my view, weaker if full discovery had been provided,” wrote Rex Duncan, the former prosecutor appointed to review the case.
Since 2004, Mr. Glossip, who is now 60, has been scheduled for execution nine times and has on more than one occasion come within hours of being put to death only to be granted a temporary stay. He has been served three final meals.
In 2015, the Supreme Court in Glossip v. Gross rejected Mr. Glossip’s challenge to the constitutionality of Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocol, permitting the State to execute him, and his execution was set for May 18, 2023.
But on April 6, 2023, citing the evidence of serious prosecutorial misconduct revealed by the independent review of Mr. Glossip’s case, Mr. Drummond asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to call off Mr. Glossip’s execution, vacate his conviction, and grant him a new trial.
“It is critical that Oklahomans have absolute faith that the death penalty is administered fairly and with certainty,” Mr. Drummond wrote in his motion. “Considering everything I know about this case, I do not believe that justice is served by executing a man based on the testimony of a compromised witness.”
The Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the State’s request just two weeks later, concluding the attorney general’s “‘concession’ does not directly provide statutory or legal grounds for relief in this case.”
“While I respect the Court of Criminal Appeals’ opinion, I am not willing to allow an execution to proceed despite so many doubts,” Mr. Drummond said in a statement. “Ensuring the integrity of the death penalty demands complete certainty. I will thoroughly review the ruling and consider what steps should be taken to ensure justice.”
In addition to the attorney general’s office, a bipartisan group that includes some of Oklahoma’s most conservative lawmakers joined advocates and legal experts in calling for a new trial for Mr. Glossip.
Today, the Supreme Court agreed that the prosecutor violated Mr. Glossip’s rights at his capital trial, that the verdict in his case is unreliable, and that he is entitled to a new trial.