State of Oklahoma plans to retry Richard Glossip but will not seek death penalty, top prosecutor says

CBS News

2 days ago

Washington — Oklahoma's attorney general said Monday that the state plans to retry inmate Richard Glossip for the murder of his boss after the Supreme Court earlier this year granted him a new trial, but will not seek the death penalty against him.
Gentner Drummond, the state's top prosecutor, said in a statement that his office does not intend to dismiss the existing first-degree murder charge brought against Glossip for the 1997 killing of Barry Van Treese, the owner of the Oklahoma City motel where Glossip worked.
Instead, the attorney general said his office will seek a sentence of life in prison for Glossip because the man who confessed to bludgeoning Van Treese with a baseball bat, Justin Sneed, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Sneed, the key witness for the prosecution, claimed Glossip paid him $10,000 to kill Van Treese. Glossip was twice convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. He has already served 27 years in prison and has long maintained his innocence.
"While it was clear to me and to the U.S. Supreme Court that Mr. Glossip did not receive a fair trial, I have never proclaimed his innocence," Drummond, a Republican who is running for governor of Oklahoma, said in a statement.
The attorney general said that after the Supreme Court sided with Glossip earlier this year, his office reviewed the merits of the case against him and decided there is sufficient evidence to secure another conviction.
"The same United States Constitution that guarantees our rights also ensures the rights of the accused," the attorney general's statement continued. "Unlike past prosecutors who allowed a key witness to lie on the stand, my office will make sure Mr. Glossip receives a fair trial based on hard facts, solid evidence and truthful testimony."
Feb. 19, 2021, photo provided by Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows Richard Glossip.
Oklahoma Department of Corrections via AP)
Glossip had been on death row for more than two decades when the Supreme Court in February ruled 5-3 that violations of his due process rights entitled him to a new trial. The high court reversed a decision from the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals that upheld Glossip's conviction and death sentence.
Glossip had been before the Supreme Court once before, in 2015, when he unsuccessfully challenged Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol on Eighth Amendment grounds. Before the high court ruled in his favor this year, he had nine execution dates scheduled and had eaten his "last meal" three times.
At the center of Glossip's Supreme Court case was the testimony of Sneed, who had told prosecutors during the trial that he had never seen a psychiatrist, but was given lithium after he was arrested. But in 2022, the state found prosecutors' handwritten notes in a banker's box, which Drummond said showed that Sneed told the state he was given lithium after seeing a jailhouse psychiatrist and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Neither Sneed's diagnosis nor his treatment by the psychiatrist were disclosed to Glossip's defense team, which Drummond said indicated prosecutors elicited false testimony on the matter.
"Had the prosecution corrected Sneed on the stand, his credibility plainly would have suffered," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the Supreme Court's majority. "That correction would have revealed to the jury not just that Sneed was untrustworthy ... but also that Sneed was willing to lie to them under oath. Such a revelation would be significant in any case, and was especially so here where Sneed was already 'nobody's idea of a strong witness.'"
Following the high court's decision, Drummond said that his office would decide the appropriate course of action. The attorney general said Monday said the "poor judgement and previous misconduct" of the prosecutors originally handling Glossip's case has compounded pain and frustration for Van Treese's family.
"While I cannot go back 25 years and handle the case in the proper way that would have ensured true justice, I still have a duty to seek the justice that is available today," he said.
Drummond told CBS News in April that he believes Glossip is guilty of at least accessory after the fact, but the question is whether he is guilty of murder.
"I do not want to be culpable in executing somebody who is innocent, which is why I took great political risk to review Mr. Glossip and have sought a new trial," he said.