Oklahoma Parole Board Denies Clemency to Richard Glossip

Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board on Wednesday declined to recommend clemency in the case of 60 year old Richard Glossip, a death row inmate who has long insisted he is innocent of the 1997 murder for which he’s scheduled to be executed next month.

The board voted 2-2, resulting in a denial of Glossip’s clemency request and his execution is scheduled to go forward on May 18th.

Glossip, then a hotel manager, was convicted of murder for ordering the killing of his boss Barry Van Treese in 1997. Justin Sneed, another hotel employee who was 19 years old at the time of the murder, admitted to killing Van Treese with a baseball bat at the Oklahoma City motel. In 1998, prosecutors told jurors Sneed killed Van Treese in a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by Glossip. Sneed received a life in prison sentence in exchange for his testimony as the key witness.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond took the unprecedented step Wednesday of supporting a death row inmate’s clemency application. Gentner stated it it would be a “grave injustice” to go through with Glossip's scheduled execution next month on a capital murder charge. Drummond commissioned a special investigation into the case that cited “multiple and cumulative errors” in concluding Glossip’s conviction should be vacated and he be granted a new trial.

“I am not aware of an Oklahoma Attorney General ever supporting a clemency application for a death row inmate,” Drummond wrote. “In every previous case that has come before this board, the state has maintained full confidence in the integrity of the conviction. That is simply not the case in this matter due to the material evidence that was not disclosed to the jury.

Among the evidence included in the special investigation report commissioned by Drummond was paperwork showing Sneed wanted to recant his testimony, who wrote to his attorney; “There are a lot of things right now that are eating at me. Somethings I need to clean up.”

Drummond believes the evidence shows Glossip is guilty of accessory after the fact, he wrote in his letter, and that Glossip might be guilty of murder. But the current record doesn’t support that he is guilty of that crime beyond a reasonable doubt, Drummond wrote.

Executing Glossip “would represent a grave injustice,” Drummond said, adding his “trial conviction was impugned by a litany of errors, that when taken in total would have created reasonable doubt. No execution should be carried out under such questionable circumstances.”

After more than 24 years on death row and three reprieves or stays of execution, Glossip is now facing his ninth execution date.