Oklahoma Governor Delays Richard Glossip’s Execution to Allow Litigation of Innocence Claims

Oklahoma Governor J. Kevin Stitt has issued a 60-day stay of exe­cu­tion to death-row pris­on­er Richard Glossip. The order, issued August 16, 2022, delays Glossip’s September 22 exe­cu­tion to pro­vide the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals time to review a pend­ing motion by Glossip seek­ing an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on new evi­dence that he is inno­cent of the 1997 mur­der of Barry Van Treese, his boss at an Oklahoma City motel. Glossip filed that motion in the wake of an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion that uncov­ered addi­tion­al evi­dence of Glossip’s inno­cence and sig­nif­i­cant government misconduct. 

Stitt resched­uled Glossip’s exe­cu­tion for December 8, 2022.

Glossip has long main­tained that he had no involve­ment in Van Treese’s mur­der. 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 numer­ous incon­sis­tent state­ments, claimed that Glossip had hired him to do so. In exchange for his tes­ti­mo­ny, Sneed avoid­ed the death penalty.

Glossip filed a clemen­cy peti­tion on August 19 in which he point­ed to new evi­dence of inno­cence dur­ing an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion com­mis­sioned by the Oklahoma leg­is­la­ture. The 343-page inde­pen­dent report, pre­pared by the law firm Reed Smith LLP and released in June 2022, revealed that the dis­trict attorney’s office had told police to destroy a box of evi­dence before Glossip’s sec­ond tri­al and that cru­cial sur­veil­lance video infor­ma­tion had also dis­ap­peared. The report sharply crit­i­cized law enforcement’s ​“slop­py and trun­cat­ed” inves­ti­ga­tion into the case and sug­ges­tive ques­tion­ing of Sneed by police that relied heav­i­ly on lead­ing ques­tions about Glossip. The clemen­cy peti­tion also cit­ed a sup­ple­men­tal report focused on the recent dis­cov­ery of a 2007 let­ter from Sneed to his attor­ney that raised ques­tions as to the truth­ful­ness of his tes­ti­mo­ny in Glossip’s trial.

Glossip’s attor­neys praised the governor’s deci­sion to stay the exe­cu­tion, with attor­ney Don Knight not­ing that the stay occurred ​“suf­fi­cient­ly in advance of the August 23 clemen­cy hear­ing to spare every­one the trau­ma that such a hear­ing entails.” The Oklahoma leg­is­la­tors who com­mis­sioned the inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion also saw the deci­sion as an impor­tant step towards a full exam­i­na­tion of the case. State Representative Kevin McDugle said, ​“The gov­er­nor is all about find­ing the truth, and if the truth is there’s not enough evi­dence to con­vict, then I think he will stand with that.”

Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor said that his office respect­ed the governor’s deci­sion and that attor­neys for the state ​“have con­fi­dence in the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to sift through Glossip’s recent fil­ings and ren­der a sound deci­sion. Our hearts go out to the fam­i­ly of the vic­tim, Barry Van Treese, who was beat­en to death with a base­ball bat in January of 1997.”

The stay marks the fourth time Glossip’s exe­cu­tion has been post­poned. Glossip was last set to be exe­cut­ed in 2015. Then-Governor Mary Fallin halt­ed the exe­cu­tion short­ly before it was set to begin after state offi­cials informed the gov­er­nor that they had pro­cured the wrong drug, a drug that had already been used to exe­cute Charles Warner ear­li­er that year. The state’s drug mix-up led to a grand jury inves­ti­ga­tion and a damn­ing report on the state’s fail­ures to fol­low its lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. The state sus­pend­ed exe­cu­tions for more than 5 years after its failed attempt to execute Glossip. 

The governor’s order stays Glossip’s September 22^nd sched­uled exe­cu­tion for 60 days and sets a new date for short­ly after the stay expires. This means that Glossip’s exe­cu­tion has been delayed until at least December 8^th. Court action before that time could fur­ther delay or call off the execution entirely.