Oklahoma Attorney General Appoints Special Counsel to Conduct ​‘Thorough Review’ of Richard Glossip’s Case

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has appoint­ed a spe­cial coun­sel to con­duct a ​‘thor­ough review’ of the case of death-row pris­on­er Richard Glossip, who has faced nine exe­cu­tion dates despite strong evi­dence that he is inno­cent of the 1997 alleged mur­der-for-hire of an Oklahoma City motel own­er. In a news release issued January 26, 2023, two days after the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals resched­uled Glossip’s exe­cu­tion from February 16 to May 18, 2023, Drummond said that Rex Duncan (pic­tured), a for­mer Republican state rep­re­sen­ta­tive and two-term Osage County District Attorney, would con­duct an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into Glossip’s innocence claim. 

Although the Oklahoma courts had refused to grant Glossip a hear­ing on his alle­ga­tions of inno­cence, he is still per­mit­ted to present those alle­ga­tions to the Oklahoma Board of Pardons as part of clemen­cy pro­ceed­ings. ​“As my office will rep­re­sent the State at the clemen­cy hear­ing,” Drummond said, ​“it is my respon­si­bil­i­ty to ensure that we are appro­pri­ate­ly respond­ing to all evi­dence that has been pre­sent­ed through Mr. Glossip’s con­vic­tion and incar­cer­a­tion. Circumstances sur­round­ing this case neces­si­tate a thorough review.”

While Drummond expressed con­fi­dence in Oklahoma’s judi­cial sys­tem, he said that con­fi­dence ​“does not allow me to ignore evi­dence.” Part of that evi­dence is a 343-page inde­pen­dent report com­mis­sioned in February 2022 by a bipar­ti­san group of 35 Oklahoma leg­is­la­tors that revealed exten­sive evi­dence sup­port­ing Glossip’s inno­cence claim. Stan Perry, who led the inves­ti­ga­tion by the law firm Reed Smith, con­clud­ed, ​“No rea­son­able jury, hear­ing the com­plete record and the uncov­ered facts detailed in this report, would have con­vict­ed Richard Glossip of capital murder.”

Glossip’s lawyer, Don Knight, issued a state­ment prais­ing Drummond’s deci­sion to rein­ves­ti­gate the case. ​“The new evi­dence we have uncov­ered since 2015 shows con­clu­sive­ly, as the first inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion by Reed Smith found, that no rea­son­able juror who viewed all the evi­dence would find Mr. Glossip guilty of mur­der for hire,” Knight said. ​“We are con­fi­dent that this new inves­ti­ga­tion will reach the same conclusion.”

Glossip was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the 1997 mur­der of his boss, motel own­er Barry Van Treese. After his ini­tial con­vic­tion was over­turned, he tried a sec­ond time and again ssen­tenced to death. Glossip has con­sis­tent­ly pro­fessed his innocence. 

No phys­i­cal evi­dence links Glossip to the mur­der, and the prosecution’s case rest­ed on the self-serv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny of his co-defen­dant, Justin Sneed, who con­fessed to killing Van Treese but, after numer­ous incon­sis­tent state­ments, even­tu­al­ly claimed that Glossip had hired him to do so. In exchange for his tes­ti­mo­ny, Sneed avoid­ed the death penalty.

Glossip came with­in hours of being exe­cut­ed in September 2015 before his exe­cu­tion was halt­ed by then-Governor Mary Fallin when she was advised that the com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy that sup­plied exe­cu­tion drugs to the state had sub­sti­tut­ed an unau­tho­rized drug for one of the drugs required in Oklahoma’s execution protocol. 

In February 2022, a bipar­ti­san group of 35 Oklahoma leg­is­la­tors, led by Republican State Representative Kevin McDugle, engaged pro bono attor­neys at Reed Smith to review Glossip’s case. The inves­ti­ga­tion team reviewed 12,000 doc­u­ments, inter­viewed wit­ness­es and jurors, and uncov­ered evi­dence that had nev­er been pre­sent­ed to a jury. The firm’s report revealed that the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s office had told police dur­ing the time that Glossip’s retri­al was pend­ing to destroy a box of evi­dence. Records indi­cate the box includ­ed finan­cial records, duct tape, and a show­er cur­tain from the crime scene. 

Surveillance video from a near­by gas sta­tion that showed an unknown indi­vid­ual leav­ing the crime scene the night of Van Treese’s mur­der 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 report called the police inves­ti­ga­tion ​“slop­py and trun­cat­ed” and sharply crit­i­cized law enforce­ment for an inter­ro­ga­tion of Sneed in which they asked numer­ous lead­ing ques­tions that implied Glossip had been involved in the murder. 

A sup­ple­men­tal report issued by the law firm sub­se­quent­ly revealed com­mu­ni­ca­tions between Sneed and his lawyer sug­gest­ing that Sneed had wished to recant his tes­ti­mo­ny. The inves­ti­ga­tors also learned of com­mu­ni­ca­tions between pros­e­cu­tors and Sneed dur­ing the sec­ond tri­al, in vio­la­tion of a wit­ness seques­tra­tion order, that informed Sneed of oth­er witness’s tes­ti­mo­ny so he could change the sto­ry he told the jury to avoid incon­sis­ten­cies in the prosecution’s case.

Glossip filed two new chal­lenges to his con­vic­tion based upon the new evi­dence, both of which were dis­missed by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals with­out a hear­ing. In response, McDugle, who pre­vi­ous­ly described him­self as a strong pro­po­nent of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, wrote a blis­ter­ing op-ed in The Oklahoman say­ing: ​“if the [Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals] can­not grant a hear­ing on this flim­sy death penal­ty con­vic­tion, my con­fi­dence as a leg­is­la­tor in our state’s judi­cial sys­tem, and its abil­i­ty to make just deci­sions and take respon­si­bil­i­ty for its fail­ures, has been destroyed.”

McDugle has vowed to work to repeal the state’s death penal­ty statute if Glossip is executed.