Supreme Court Revisits Oklahoma Death Row Case After State Admits Mistakes

(DailyDig.com) – On January 22, the Supreme Court decided to hear Richard Glossip’s unusual appeal. Glossip is a death row convict in Oklahoma who, according to the state attorney general, should not be killed.

As a condemned man, Glossip has weathered 26 years in prison, nine dates for execution, three final suppers, and two separate investigations that cast doubt on his guilt. The court postponed the scheduled execution last May to allow for the resolution of legal objections.

According to Glossip’s lawyer, John Mills, the Court of Criminal Appeals in Oklahoma should be overturned since it has questionably rejected the state’s admission of fault.

According to Oklahoma’s attorney general, General Gentner F. Drummond, who testified before the Supreme Court, the state has lately chosen to admit mistakes in Glossip’s case and backs the effort to vacate his conviction. A review of fresh evidence pertaining to misconduct by the prosecution during Glossip’s trial prompted the action.

Unfortunately, the confession of mistake was rejected by the Court of Criminal Appeals in Oklahoma, which meant the execution could proceed.

According to what Drummond informed the judges, this ruling is not the last say. The unfairness of allowing the death penalty to be carried out in a case where the government’s own acknowledged mistakes led to the conviction seems incomprehensible.

Justin Sneed killed Oklahoma City hotel owner Barry Van Treese in 1997. Sneed accused the hotel manager, Glossip, of hiring him to kill Van Treese in order to receive a reprieve from the death penalty. Prosecutors presented the homicide as a “murder-for-hire” plan.

The state said that Sneed’s credibility was crucial to Glossip’s conviction. However, by withholding the fact that Sneed had received treatment for a severe mental illness, the prosecution omitted information that would have cast doubt on his character and allowed fraudulent testimony to stand.

Drummond said to the judges that carrying out a death sentence, which the state cannot defend due to prosecutorial misconduct, would not serve justice.