Oklahoma Legislature Releases Independent Review of Richard Glossip Case

Oklahoma leg­is­la­tors announced that an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion revealed strong evi­dence of Richard Glossip​’s inno­cence. Glossip, who came with­in hours of exe­cu­tion in 2015, is the sec­ond pris­on­er the Oklahoma Attorney General is seek­ing to exe­cute this fall. After the inves­ti­ga­tion report was released, Glossip’s attor­neys filed a motion in the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, ask­ing that an exe­cu­tion date not be set so that Glossip can seek post-con­vic­tion review based on the findings. 

“We’ve got an indi­vid­ual sit­ting on death row that’s been there 25 years and I believe he’s total­ly inno­cent,” Oklahoma Rep. Kevin McDugle (R – Broken Arrow) said at a press con­fer­ence on June 15, 2022, announc­ing the release of the inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion results. In February 2022, a bipar­ti­san group of 35 Oklahoma leg­is­la­tors engaged pro bono attor­neys at the law firm Reed Smith to review the case. Stan Perry, who led the inves­ti­ga­tion, con­clud­ed, ​“No rea­son­able jury, hear­ing the com­plete record and the uncov­ered facts detailed in this report, would have con­vict­ed Richard Glossip of capital murder.”

McDugle vowed, ​“If we put Richard Glossip to death I will fight in this state to abol­ish the death penal­ty sim­ply because the process is not pure. I do believe in the death penal­ty, I believe it needs to be there, but the process to take some­one to death has to be of the highest integrity.”

Glossip main­tains his inno­cence in the 1997 mur­der-for-hire of Barry Van Treese. Justin Sneed, the man who killed Van Treese, received a plea deal in exchange for his tes­ti­mo­ny that Glossip had paid him to com­mit the mur­der. Sneed is serv­ing a life sen­tence. Glossip was sen­tenced to death in 1998, but his con­vic­tion was over­turned due to inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel. He was retried in 2004.

The inves­ti­ga­tion team reviewed 12,000 doc­u­ments, inter­viewed wit­ness­es and jurors, and uncov­ered evi­dence that had nev­er been pre­sent­ed to a jury. The team’s 343-page report includes the rev­e­la­tion that the dis­trict attorney’s office told police to destroy a box of evi­dence before Glossip’s sec­ond tri­al. Records indi­cate the box includ­ed finan­cial records, duct tape, and a show­er cur­tain from the crime scene. Surveillance video from a near­by gas sta­tion, tak­en the night of Van Treese’s mur­der, and show­ing an unknown indi­vid­ual leav­ing the crime scene, was entered into evi­dence, but then dis­ap­peared. McDugle called the destruc­tion of evi­dence ​“gross mis­con­duct,” say­ing, ​“We don’t seek con­vic­tions, we seek jus­tice. If a defense attor­ney had done what the DA’s office did…charges would’ve been brought for obstructing justice.”

The Reed Smith team showed jurors a video of Sneed’s inter­ro­ga­tion, dur­ing which police men­tioned Glossip’s name 6 times in the first 20 min­utes. ​“They plant­ed in the mind of Sneed that Glossip did it,” Perry said. After view­ing the video, which was not shown at either tri­al, many jurors said they would not have vot­ed to convict Glossip.

Glossip has faced three exe­cu­tion dates, one of which was halt­ed at the last minute because the state had obtained the wrong drug for his exe­cu­tion. He is the sec­ond of 25 pris­on­ers for whom the Oklahoma Attorney General request­ed exe­cu­tion dates. If the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals accepts the request, Glossip could once again be sched­uled for exe­cu­tion as soon as September 2022. ​“Given the thor­ough­ness of the inves­ti­ga­tion and report, and the seri­ous­ness of the con­cerns it rais­es, it would be pre­ma­ture for this Court to set a date for Mr. Glossip’s exe­cu­tion,” Glossip’s attor­neys said in their objec­tion to set­ting an execution date.