OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond continued to push back against the death sentence of inmate Richard Glossip, filing a brief last week in support of Glossip’s petition to the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari.
Drummond, a Republican, said Glossip’s conviction for the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese should be vacated and remanded back to district court after an investigation revealed false testimony by the prosecution’s key witness.
Drummond’s brief follows an April ruling by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals that rejected Glossip’s application for post-conviction relief.
“The OCCA’s decision cannot be reconciled with this Court’s precedents, the record in this case, or bedrock principles,” the brief said.
During a June appearance at the Oklahoma Press Association’s annual convention, Drummond told Southwest Ledger he expected the Glossip case to eventually go back to an Oklahoma County District Court.
“I think it (the Glossip case) will be remanded back to Oklahoma County for that county to adjudicate it” he said. “And if that’s the case, I predict it will probably be pled out.”
Glossip was initially charged with accessory to murder on Jan. 15, 1997, after the murder of his boss, Barry Van Treese. A coworker confessed to beating Van Treese to death in an Oklahoma City motel room. As part of a plea agreement to avoid the death penalty, the coworker testified that Glossip offered to pay him for the killing.
As a result, Glossip was charged and eventually convicted of first-degree murder in 1998. The coworker, who was the prosecution’s star witness, was convicted and received a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals later overturned Glossip’s conviction for ineffective assistance of counsel, but he was again convicted and sentenced to death at a 2004 retrial.
Drummond has continued to raise questions about how the case was prosecuted. He said an investigation showed the state withheld specific materials from Glossip’s defense team. The Attorney General provided access to these items, referred to as “Box 8,” and appointed an independent counsel to conduct a thorough review of the case.
Evidence in Box 8 led to the revelation in January that Glossip’s coworker – the prosecution’s star witness – had been allowed to give false testimony that failed to disclose he had been prescribed lithium by a psychiatrist for a serious psychiatric condition.
“The conviction in this case was obtained through false testimony that the prosecution elicited but failed to correct from the most indispensable witness at Glossip’s second trial – indeed, from the person who actually delivered the fatal blows to the victim and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors to avoid facing the death penalty himself,” Drummond’s brief says.
Drummond wrote that his office was acting consistent with ‘[t]he public trust reposed in the law enforcement officers of the Government’ and ‘confess[ed] error’ in light of the State’s reasoned judgment that ‘a miscarriage of justice’ of the highest order ‘may result from [its] remaining silent.’”
Drummond’s brief said the state disputes the OCCA’s April ruling that information about the prosecution’s key witness likely would not have made a difference to jurors.
“With this information, plus [the coworker’s] history of drug addiction, the State believes that a qualified defense attorney likely could have attacked … [the coworker’s] ability to properly recall key facts at the second trial and provide a viable alternative theory of the case that did not involve Glossip,” the brief said. “At the very least, there is a reasonable probability that evidence casting doubt on a centerpiece of the State’s theory would have been enough to persuade a juror to reject the death penalty.”
Drummond’s support of a new trial for Glossip has drawn fire from the state’s District Attorneys Council. In a filing with the U.S. Supreme Court, the council wrote that it was interested in the case because a state court had unanimously concluded that Oklahoma prosecutors properly followed all legal requirements in prosecuting Glossip and said the state court’s decision should stand.
Drummond said he respected the state’s district attorneys but didn’t mind disagreeing with them.
“They have enjoyed years and years of absolute obedience by the AG, and I respect the DAs,” Drummond said in an interview with Southwest Ledger. “But we’re gonna disagree and when we disagree, I’m gonna stand my ground. And we disagree on Richard Glossip.”