Richard Glossip has faced execution for twenty-four years. He has been served his last meal three times. He is scheduled to die on May 18, 2023. And he is innocent.
In 1998, a jury convicted then thirty-three-year-old Richard Glossip guilty of a murder he did not commit. His punishment? Execution. The confessed killer, then 19-year-old Justin Sneed, used Glossip as a scapegoat to get life without parole, which he is currently serving. Following excessive prodding by interrogating officers and multiple changes to his story, Sneed claimed that Glossip ordered him to murder their boss, Barry Van Treese. Sneed’s DNA and fingerprints covered the murder scene and stolen money while no physical evidence ties Glossip to the scene.
In July 2022, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals scheduled twenty-five executions to be carried out from August 2022 to December 2024. At the rate of almost one execution per month, the state plans to eliminate over half of its death row population. Many of the men part of this execution spree have severe mental impairments, suffered childhood abuse, or, like Glossip, have innocence claims. So far, the state has executed five of the twenty-five men and has delayed upcoming executions as Oklahoma’s Department of Corrections is severely understaffed.
Glossip was the second of the twenty-five men scheduled to die, originally on September 22, 2022, but Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt issued a 60-day stay of execution to allow the Court time to review Glossip’s appeal for a new evidentiary hearing. This request came after an independent investigation commissioned by the Oklahoma legislature found new evidence of Glossip’s innocence, which he has maintained since his arrest in 1997.
The extensive report, published in June 2022, revealed that the district attorney’s office instructed police to destroy a file of evidence prior to Glossip’s second trial. The police had also not thoroughly investigated the matter, concluding the murder investigation less than two weeks after Glossip was arrested.
The independent report found other key evidence pointing to Glossip’s innocence. Roger Lee Ramsey was incarcerated at the Oklahoma County Jail at the same time as Sneed; they lived on the same floor and were cellmates at one point. Sneed, coming down off meth, recited the story of his crime two or three separate times. The facts that never changed in his different tellings were that there was an accomplice, that they lured Mr. Van Treese into a room to rob him, that the robbery went poorly, and that Sneed stabbed Van Treese and beat him to death with a baseball bat. He also mentioned a woman being involved, possibly the accomplice. However, he never mentioned that Glossip hired or paid him to commit the murder, and he stated that he pinned the crime on Glossip because he was mad at him.
Ramsey’s account is not the only evidence that Sneed committed the murder without Glossip’s instruction. A witness heard a man and woman arguing in the room where Van Treese was killed shortly before the murder; this was never investigated by the police. And the investigation unearthed a handwritten letter Sneed sent his defense attorney in 2007 which hints at his remorse. In this letter, Sneed confessed that he was feeling immense anxiety about his role in the second trial and that “it was a mistake” that he wished he could “clean up.”
Despite no physical evidence linking Glossip to the crime, destroyed evidence, and inadequate representation, Glossip remains on Oklahoma’s death row and is facing his ninth execution date. On Thursday, April 20, 2023, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals denied the Attorney General’s request for a stay of execution and upheld Glossip’s murder conviction. Don Knight, Glossip’s attorney, says the next step is the Supreme Court.
Richard Glossip, an innocent man, should not have to receive his fourth final meal. Visit this website to see how you can help.
_______________ This article was written by Julia Landick, a justice and law major in the class of 2025, as part of Students for a Just Society's Contributing Writer program. Those who are interested in becoming a contributing writer can complete this application. _______________
Sources:
https://theforgivenessfoundation.org/2023/04/18/oklahoma-stays-of-execution-of-richard-glossip/ https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/oklahoma-court-schedules-25-executions-between-august-2022-and-december-2024
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