OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor said last week that he would not support the call for a new hearing in the case of Richard Glossip, a death row inmate scheduled to be executed in September.
O’Connor’s statement comes at the heels of a letter by 61 Oklahoma lawmakers who asked the attorney general for a new hearing in the case.
Glossip, 59, is set to be executed for the 1997 beating death of his former boss, Barry Van Treese, the owner of an Oklahoma City motel. A motel maintenance man, Justin Sneed, confessed to the killing. Sneed said Glossip offered to pay him $10,000 to kill Van Treese, so Van Treese would not fire him.
Glossip has continued to proclaim his innocence and argued prosecutors intentionally destroyed evidence. He said his trial attorneys were ineffective and he is ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability.
In their letter to O’Connor the lawmakers cited 343-page report conducted by international law firm Reed Smith which reviewed Glossip’s case. That report documents the destruction of several key pieces of physical evidence.
“Considering the facts we uncovered, and that there exists no physical forensic evidence or credible corroborating testimony linking Glossip to the crime, our conclusion is that no reasonable juror hearing the complete record would have convicted Richard Glossip of first-degree murder,” attorney Stan Perry, a member of the investigative team and the firm’s global director of pro bono and community service, said.
“We have learned that the evidence destruction was in violation of a longstanding agreement in place since the 1990s between the Police Department and the District Attorney’s Office that evidence in a capital murder case is never to be destroyed,” the report noted.
The law firm’s report said Glossip’s 2004 trial could not be relied on to support a murder-for-hire-conviction. “Nor can it (the trial) provide a basis for the government to take the life of Richard E. Glossip,” the report said.
Perry said concerns about the Glossip case have been raised for more than 20 years.
“The findings of our independent review reveal a cascade of failures and breakdowns in procedure that should never occur, and most certainly never in capital punishment cases,” he said.
The report noted that the state’s theory that the case was a murder for hire was wrong.
“The most complete set of facts and objective evidence support that Mr. Van Treese’s murder was most likely a robbery gone bad with the actual killer, Sneed, looking for help after the fact from his manager and one‐time friend, Glossip, rather than a planned murder for hire orchestrated and controlled by Glossip,” the report said. “The lead homicide detective has years later publicly stated his belief that Sneed ‘probably got a little carried away because he was mad because he got hit. And … before it was uh, too la – I mean, he ended up killing Barry and didn’t – I don’t know that he intended to, but he did. He beat him pretty good, so.’ Yet this does not square with what the prosecution told the jury in Glossip’s second trial.”
In his letter to lawmakers O’Connor said the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeal agreed that Glossip had enlisted Sneed to kill Van Treese.
“Since that time, multiple courts have reviewed this evidence and determined that the jury that convicted Glossip and sentenced him to death did so in full accordance with the law,” O’Connor wrote. “Glossip’s case has been before the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals several times and now the court is considering Glossip’s latest appeal which was filed only after his execution date was set. In addition to this, several federal courts including the Western District of Oklahoma, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court, have rejected Glossip’s claims along the way.”
Though he said his office had the “utmost respect for the opinions of those members of the Legislature who wrote my office regarding this matter, it is the courts who are authorized to make decisions when claims of factual or legal innocence are raised on appeal,” O’Connor wrote. “With that in mind, I look the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to carefully consider the claims before it and render a decision that complies with Oklahoma law.
State Rep. Rep. Kevin McDugle (R-Broken Arrow) has called for a new review of the Glossip case. A supporter of the death penalty, McDugle said in a media statement that he will push to eliminate the practice if Glossip is executed.
Glossip is scheduled to be executed Sept. 22. His clemency hearing before the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board is set for Aug. 23.