Richard Glossip Execution Halted for a Seventh Time

Oklahoma has once again put off the exe­cu­tion of Richard Glossip, the sev­enth time his pend­ing exe­cu­tion has been stayed or reprieved.

On November 2, 2022, Governor Kevin Stitt issued a new reprieve, stay­ing Glossip’s sched­uled December 8, 2022 exe­cu­tion date ​“to allow time for the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to address pend­ing legal pro­ceed­ings” seek­ing to over­turn Glossip’s con­vic­tion on grounds of inno­cence. Stitt’s reprieve extend­ed the stay issued as part of a pri­or August 2022, and resched­uled Glossip’s exe­cu­tion for February 16, 2023.

Glossip has long main­tained his inno­cence of the 1997 mur­der of Barry Van Treese, his boss at an Oklahoma City motel. No phys­i­cal evi­dence linked him to the mur­der, and the prosecution’s case rest­ed on the self-serv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny of his co-defen­dant, Justin Sneed. Sneed con­fessed to killing Van Treese but, after pro­vid­ing numer­ous incon­sis­tent state­ments, claimed that Glossip had hired him to do so. In exchange for his tes­ti­mo­ny, Sneed avoid­ed the death penal­ty. Glossip has present evi­dence from mul­ti­ple sources that Sneed had admit­ted to false­ly impli­cat­ing him and the pros­e­cu­tion with­held evi­dence from the defense that Sneed had attempt­ed to recant his accussations.

Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor filed a motion in the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on June 10, 2022 to set exe­cu­tion dates for Glossip and 24 oth­er Oklahoma death row pris­on­ers, just days before the law firm Reed Smith LLP released the find­ings of an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion expos­ing sig­nif­i­cant evi­dence of gov­ern­ment mis­con­duct and destruc­tion of evi­dence in his Glossip’s case. Reed Smith con­clud­ed that ​“No rea­son­able jury, hear­ing the com­plete record and the uncov­ered facts detailed in this report, would have con­vict­ed Richard Glossip of cap­i­tal mur­der.” On July 1, 2022, the same day that Glossip’s lawyers filed a motion for an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on his inno­cence claim, the state court set the 25 exe­cu­tion dates over a two-year peri­od between August 2022 and December 2024.

Glossip has been sched­uled for exe­cu­tion eight times since 2014. He has been served his last meal three sep­a­rate times, and in September 2015 he received a last-minute reprieve from then-Governor Mary Fallin after the Oklahoma Department of Corrections noti­fied her that its anony­mous drug sup­pli­er had vio­lat­ed the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col by pro­vid­ing the depart­ment with an unau­tho­rized exe­cu­tion drug. The same wrong drug had been used six months ear­li­er in the exe­cu­tion of Charles Warner, whose last words were ​“My body is on fire.”

In a state­ment, Glossip’s attor­ney Don Knight thanked the gov­er­nor for the reprieve and empha­sized the grav­i­ty of the evi­dence pre­sent­ed in Glossip’s pend­ing motion. ​“The new­ly uncov­ered evi­dence shows a con­cert­ed effort by the State to destroy and hide evi­dence that is favor­able to Rich, even to this day, and, most shock­ing­ly, to man­u­fac­ture tri­al tes­ti­mo­ny they need­ed to con­vict him,” Knight said. 

State Rep. Kevin McDugle, a Republican leg­is­la­tor who has become a lead­ing advo­cate for Glossip, said, ​“Oklahomans — includ­ing both those who sup­port and oppose the death penal­ty — will not tol­er­ate Mr. Glossip being exe­cut­ed while there is so much proof that the police and District Attorney lost and destroyed impor­tant evi­dence, wrong­ful­ly altered crit­i­cal tes­ti­mo­ny, and con­tin­ue to pur­pose­ly hide evi­dence to this day. … In the face of this over­whelm­ing evi­dence now, more than ever, I urge the OCCA to either reverse his con­vic­tion entire­ly or quick­ly grant the full evi­den­tiary hear­ing that his attor­neys have request­ed. This is the only way to begin to right this terrible wrong.”

Richard Glossip’s exe­cu­tion dates and warrant outcomes

November 20, 2014 — Execution stayed to allow the state to obtain drugs and train staff on new protocols.

January 29, 2015 — Execution stayed to allow time for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the Oklahoma death-row prisoner’s class action chal­lenge to the state’s lethal injection protocol

September 16, 2015 — Execution stayed to pro­vide time for the court to review mate­ri­als sub­mit­ted by the defense.

September 30, 2015 — Execution reprieved at the last minute while was prepar­ing to car­ry it out, when state cor­rec­tions offi­cials noti­fied Governor Mary Pallin that they had obtained the wrong wrong execution drug.

November 6, 2015 — Execution stayed pend­ing review of Oklahoma’s lethal injection procedures.

September 22, 2022 — Execution reprieved by Governor Kevin Stitt on August 16, 2022 to pro­vide the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals time to deter­mine whether Glossip will be grant­ed an evi­den­tiary hear­ing to address new evi­dence of his innocence.

December 8, 2022 — Execution again reprieved by Governor Kevin Stitt on November 2, 2022 ​“to allow time for the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to address pend­ing legal proceedings.” 

February 16, 2023 — Death warrant pending.