This afternoon, Oklahoma is slated to execute death row inmate Richard Glossip after a protracted legal battle. Glossip, whose case has received widespread media attention, was spared just hours before the state’s scheduled execution on September 16 after his lawyers claimed they had new evidence proving his innocence.
On Monday, the Oklahoma Court of Appeals narrowly declined to halt Glossip’s execution. In a 3–2 decision, the court rejected Glossip’s newest request for an new hearing and an emergency stay of execution, ruling that the new evidence presented by Glossip’s attorneys “merely expands” on theories that were raised in his earlier appeals.
The court was sharply divided. In dissenting opinions, the two judges who voted in stay of the execution wrote that Glossip’s original trial was “deeply flawed” and argued that “the State has no interest in executing an actually innocent man.”
Glossip was convicted of ordering the grisly 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, the owner of a motel where Glossip worked. Prosecutors argued that Glossip commissioned Justin Sneed, who also worked at the motel, to kill Van Treese because Glossip was embezzling money from the motel and was concerned Van Treese would find out. Sneed confessed to beating Van Treese to death with a baseball bat and was sentenced to life in prison.
Glossip’s attorneys said that Sneed implicated Glossip in exchange for a deal to receive life in prison without parole instead of the death penalty. To date, there is no physical evidence linking Glossip to the crime.
Glossip’s attorneys presented three affidavits as new evidence after the stay was granted on September 16. One was from Richard Barrett, Sneed’s former drug dealer, who claimed that Sneed was a methamphetamine addict who stole to sustain his habit and that Glossip was a “good hearted guy” who did not appear to “know anything about Justin Sneed stealing from motel rooms or cars in the motel parking lots or the businesses nearby.”
I don’t believe anybody wants to kill an innocent man
A second affidavit was from Michael Scott, an inmate at the facility where Justin Sneed was inncarcerated in 2006. Scott testified that he overheard Sneed bragging about framing Glossip. “Among the inmates, it was common knowledge that Justin Sneed lied and sold Richard Glossip up the river,” Scott said.
The third affidavit came from Joseph Tapley, who shared a cell with Sneed in 1997 at the Oklahoma County Jail. Tapley said that Sneed told him about the crime but did not mention Glossip.
Glossip’s execution is Oklahoma’s first since the U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld the state’s controversial lethal injection drug formula. Glossip, the lead plaintiff in the case, challenged the use of the sedative drug midazolam in executions, arguing that it risked causing inmates excruciating pain.
ThinkProgress spoke with one of Glossip’s attorneys, Don Knight, shortly before Glossip’s scheduled execution. Knight talked about Glossip’s reaction to Monday’s ruling, next steps for the case, and the significance of the case for proponents and detractors of the death penalty.
THINKPROGRESS: What was your reaction when you found out that Oklahoma Court of Appeals rejected Glossip’s request for a stay? Were you anticipating that result?KNIGHT: Well…I don’t ever want to pre-judge what any judge or jury does. So, I’m always prepared for anything. Honestly we feel like we have given them enough information to show that again, if those witnesses are to be believed, we’ve got a pretty good chance to show that Richard Glossip is innocent. I think that there is no way that a jury with all of the information that we now have finds him guilty. So I think that we’ve given them enough information. I was shocked and I was sad. No, I can’t say I was shocked. Disappointed and sad that the court ruled the way that it did.
What are the next steps?
We just submitted a document to [Governor Mary Fallin] asking her to grant us a 60 day stay. Another one. We’re filing in the United States Supreme Court this afternoon. We also filed a request with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals for a rehearing. We will continue to do everything we possibly can. Whatever those steps may be, will be determined after each of these other steps have been taken and completed. I can’t tell you what’s going to happen in the future.
This is a case that is going to help end the death penalty
And how is Richard Glossip taking the news after the announcement yesterday?
It’s tough. He’s struggling greatly, of course. Trying to keep positive somehow in the face of what looks like a very bad situation that’s coming. So, he’s trying real hard to stay positive.
This case has gotten so much attention. Is this level of attention unprecedented compared to other cases you have worked on? Has this case received more attention than others?
I think this case has received a lot more attention than almost any other case. I think it has resulted in a lot of the information that we have being able to come forward, because people hear about it on the press and then they have information and then they come forward. I wish everybody, I wish every single defendant who is at Richard Glossip’s stage had this kind of opportunity for this much attention to be drawn to their case. And I’m sad that they don’t.
Do you think generally the response is indicative of shifting attitudes about the death penalty?
I hope so. I honestly believe that…I would be hard-pressed to believe that any less than 90 percent of people don’t want to kill an innocent man. I’m sure that there are people out there who take some kind of perverse joy in doing so, but we only asked for an opportunity to show that he was innocent. That’s all we asked for. Because I don’t believe anybody wants to kill an innocent man. So I don’t know about the attitudes about the death penalty, but I don’t think anybody wants to kill an innocent man.
Do you think that this case [is a not a good case] for proponents of the death penalty?
I think it’s a very bad case for them. I think that this is a case that is going to help end the death penalty because we know before we killed him that he’s innocent. A lot of cases you find out afterward, the DNA, oops, gee we made a mistake on that one. Or like Cameron Todd Willingham down in Texas when the forensic evidence came out afterward and changed the nature of the case, but what do we know now beforehand? We know right now today that there is probably a pretty darn good chance that this guy’s innocent if he went to trial tomorrow. And yet, we’re going to kill him. And that’s going to do a lot of damage I think to the death penalty as a whole.
Is there anything else you would like to add? Anything else you would like people to know?
Write, email. Do anything you possibly can to get peoples attention. Make this a big deal. Don’t let this happen in the shadows. Just don’t let it happen in the shadows. That’s all.