Richard Glossip
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Richard Eugene Glossip (born February 9, 1963) is an American prisoner who was on death row for over two decades at Oklahoma State Penitentiary after being convicted of commissioning the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese. The man who murdered Van Treese, Justin Sneed (age 19 when he committed the crime), had a " meth habit" and agreed to plead guilty in exchange for testifying against Glossip. Sneed received a life sentence without parole, avoiding the death penalty by his plea bargain. Glossip's case has attracted international attention due to the unusual nature of his conviction, namely that there was little or no corroborating evidence, with the first case against him described as "extremely weak" by the
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals is one of the two highest judicial bodies in the U.S. state of Oklahoma and is part of the Oklahoma Court System, the judicial branch of the Oklahoma state government.
. On February 25, 2025, the
US Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...
set aside Glossip's conviction and ordered a new trial. Glossip is notable for his role as named plaintiff in the 2015 Supreme Court case '' Glossip v. Gross'', which ruled that executions carried out by a three-drug protocol of
midazolam Midazolam, sold under the brand name Versed among others, is a benzodiazepine medication used for anesthesia, premedication before surgical anesthesia, and procedural sedation, and to treat psychomotor agitation, severe agitation. It induces ...
, pancuronium bromide, and
potassium chloride Potassium chloride (KCl, or potassium salt) is a metal halide salt composed of potassium and chlorine. It is odorless and has a white or colorless vitreous crystal appearance. The solid dissolves readily in water, and its solutions have a sa ...
did not constitute
cruel and unusual punishment Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase in common law describing punishment that is considered unacceptable due to the suffering, pain, or humiliation it inflicts on the person subjected to the sanction. The precise definition varies by jurisdi ...
under the Eighth Amendment to the
United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally includi ...
. In September and October 2015, Glossip was granted three successive stays of execution due to questions about Oklahoma's lethal injection drugs after Oklahoma Department of Corrections officials used potassium acetate instead of potassium chloride to execute Charles Frederick Warner on January 15, 2015, contrary to protocol. Oklahoma Attorney General
Scott Pruitt Edward Scott Pruitt (born May 9, 1968) is an American attorney, lobbyist and Republican Party (United States), Republican politician from the state of Oklahoma. He served as the 14th Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) f ...
ordered a multicounty grand jury investigation of the execution drug mix-up.


Murder of Barry Van Treese

On January 7, 1997, Justin Sneed beat Barry Van Treese to death with a baseball bat.Liliana Segura & Jordan Smith, What Happened in Room 102
''The Intercept'' (July 9, 2015).
The killing occurred at the Best Budget Inn in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Oklahoma, most populous city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat ...
, where Van Treese was the owner, Sneed was the maintenance man, and Glossip was the manager. In exchange for avoiding the
death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...
, Sneed confessed and told police that Glossip had instructed him to commit the murder. Glossip insisted on his actual innocence and refused to accept a
plea bargain A plea bargain, also known as a plea agreement or plea deal, is a legal arrangement in criminal law where the defendant agrees to plead guilty or no contest to a charge in exchange for concessions from the prosecutor. These concessions can include a ...
. In July 1998, an Oklahoma jury convicted Glossip of the murder and sentenced him to death. In 2001, the
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals is one of the two highest judicial bodies in the U.S. state of Oklahoma and is part of the Oklahoma Court System, the judicial branch of the Oklahoma state government.
unanimously threw out that conviction, calling the case "extremely weak" and finding Glossip had received unconstitutionally
ineffective assistance of counsel In United States law, ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC) is a claim raised by a convicted criminal defendant asserting that the defendant's legal counsel performed so ineffectively that it deprived the defendant of the constitutional right gu ...
. In August 2004, a second Oklahoma jury convicted Glossip of the murder and sentenced him to death. Glossip complained that prosecutors had intimidated his defense attorney into resigning. However, in April 2007, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the death sentence, with two judges in the majority, one judge specially concurring, and two judges dissenting. Glossip attracted the advocacy of Sister Helen Prejean, but failed to get the clemency board to consider letters from Sneed’s family, who believed Sneed to be lying.


Innocence controversy

Glossip's legal team asserts that Justin Sneed was addicted to
methamphetamine Methamphetamine (contracted from ) is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug use, recreational or Performance-enhancing substance, performance-enhancing drug and less commonly as a secon ...
at the time that he murdered Van Treese, and that he habitually broke into vehicles in the parking lot of the Best Budget Inn while he was employed as a maintenance man. Glossip's death sentence is controversial because he was convicted almost entirely on the testimony of Sneed, who confessed to bludgeoning Van Treese to death with an aluminum baseball bat by himself and who was spared a death sentence himself by implicating Glossip. In 2015, Oklahoma City police released a 1999 police report showing that a box of evidence had been marked for destruction. The report was never provided to attorneys who represented Glossip in his second trial or his appeals, according to his new defense team. In an interview published the same day, Glossip's attorney, Donald Knight, criticised his previous attorneys, saying "They did a terrible job. Horrible. No preparation. No investigation." On September 22, 2015, Glossip's attorneys filed papers referring to a July 1997 psychiatric evaluation of Sneed, in which he said he understood he was charged with murder in connection with a burglary and made no reference to Glossip's involvement. On September 23, 2015, Glossip's attorneys filed papers asserting that two new witnesses were being intimidated. In affidavits, one witness had claimed that Sneed laughed about lying in court about Glossip's involvement; another said he was convinced based on his conversations with Sneed that Sneed acted alone. On September 24, 2015, the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office filed papers stating that the claims of the new witnesses were "inherently suspect", and that the time it took Van Treese to die and whether blood loss contributed to his death did not affect the trial outcome, in response to a defense claim that the testimony of Dr. Chai Choi, who performed the autopsy, was incorrect. On September 28, 2015, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals voted 3–2 to proceed with execution. Presiding Judge Clancy Smith wrote "While finality of judgment is important, the state has no interest in executing an actually innocent man. An evidentiary hearing will give Glossip the chance to prove his allegations that Sneed has recanted, or demonstrate to the court that he cannot provide evidence that would exonerate him." Judge Arlene Johnson wrote that the original trial was "deeply flawed" and an evidentiary hearing should be ordered. On September 30, 2015, Glossip spoke to the UK's
Sky News Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel, live stream news network and news organisation. Sky News is distributed via an English-language radio news service, and through online channels. It is owned by Sky Group, a division of ...
on the telephone from his cell as he was served his last meal. Glossip said that Sneed testified at trial that Glossip did not wear or own gloves, "And now he's on TV saying that I did. It continues to show the discrepancies in anything that Justin Sneed has to say." On the same day, Virgin CEO
Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate who co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, and controlled 5 companies remaining of once more than 400. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneu ...
bought an advertisement in ''
The Oklahoman ''The Oklahoman'' is the largest daily newspaper in Oklahoma, United States, and is the only regional daily that covers the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, Greater Oklahoma City area. The Alliance for Audited Media (formerly Audit Bureau Circul ...
'' newspaper which had campaigned against the execution, with Branson stating the evidence against Glossip is flawed and that "every person is deserving of a fair trial", adding, "Your state is about to execute a man whose guilt has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt." The
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...
denied a
stay of execution A stay of execution ( Law Latin: ''cesset executio'', "let execution cease") is a court order to temporarily suspend the execution of a court judgment or other court order. The word "execution" refers to the imposition of whatever judgment is bei ...
. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that he would have granted a stay. Ultimately, Oklahoma Governor
Mary Fallin Mary Fallin (; née Copeland; born December 9, 1954) is an American politician who served as the 27th governor of Oklahoma from 2011 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, she was elected in 2010 Oklahoma gub ...
did grant Glossip a stay of execution the same day, citing discrepancies with the lethal injection protocol (see next section). In July 2022, Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board member Richard Smothermon, who had up to that point voted to deny clemency to every death row inmate seeking it, voted to recuse himself from voting because his wife had been a prosecutor on the case. In August 2022, 61 lawmakers urged Attorney General John O'Connor to support Glossip's request for a new hearing because without "support from O'Connor, the Court of Criminal Appeals is expected to reject Glossip's claims of innocence, as it has done before."


Kevin McDugle advocacy

In 2022, Oklahoma state representative Kevin McDugle, a Republican, said "he would fight to end the death penalty if Glossip dies." He has been quoted as saying, "They can show me nothing that ties him, and the one thing they have is a witness that says that he was the one that told him to commit the murder. Guess who that witness was? The actual murderer that beat him with a baseball bat. He's the witness, and what did he get for that testimony? He got off of death row himself and got life in prison." In May 2023, McDugle accused the District Attorneys Council of applying "pressure across the system to protect their power" and claimed district attorneys are "deeply embedded" in Oklahoma's branches of government in his attempt to help Richard Glossip. The Council has also "actively sought to undermine Prater’s successor, Vicki Behenna, the county’s first female elected DA". Prater and the Council knows "that if the courts agree that Glossip’s conviction should be overturned, it will be up to Behenna to decide whether to retry the case." McDugle worked with
Dr. Phil Phillip Calvin McGraw (born September 1, 1950), also known as Dr. Phil, is an American television personality and author who is best known for hosting the talk show '' Dr. Phil''. He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, though he ceased ...
to bring attention to Glossip's case. McDugle is quoted as saying "This case is no longer about justice. It's about power, pride, and politics." He has threatened to try to legislatively put a stop to the death penalty in Oklahoma if Glossip is executed. In 2024, McDugle said he "believes that members of the Oklahoma District Attorneys Council had improper communications with the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board prior to Richard Glossip's
clemency A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the j ...
hearing in April 2023." District Attorney Jason Hicks criticized Attorney General Getner Drummond for sharing his views on the case. In other communications revealed, district attorneys referred to Drummond as a "douche", "complained among themselves that the attorney general had turned Glossip's clemency hearing into a 'circus, and accused Drummond of vying for a run for
governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...
.


Oklahoma lethal injection protocol controversy

On October 13, 2014, the Oklahoma Attorney General said the state did not have an adequate supply of execution drugs and delayed the execution of Glossip and two other inmates. On January 28, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court halted executions in Oklahoma until it decided on lethal injection drugs. However, in June 2015, the Supreme Court approved the use of Oklahoma's lethal injection mix in combination with
midazolam Midazolam, sold under the brand name Versed among others, is a benzodiazepine medication used for anesthesia, premedication before surgical anesthesia, and procedural sedation, and to treat psychomotor agitation, severe agitation. It induces ...
(see sub-section below) to carry out executions, leading to a reinstatement of capital punishments in the state and a new execution date for Glossip. Governor Fallin's stay of Glossip's execution on September 30, 2015 was motivated by the Department of Corrections having received potassium acetate instead of potassium chloride. The execution was reset for November 6, 2015. On October 1, 2015, Attorney General Scott Pruitt asked the Court of Criminal Appeals to issue an indefinite stay of all scheduled executions in Oklahoma, citing the Department of Correction's acquisition of a drug contrary to protocol. The next day, the request was granted. On October 6, 2015, Governor Mary Fallin said she hired an independent attorney, Robert McCampbell, to advise her on the legal process. On October 8, 2015, it was reported that Oklahoma Corrections Department officials used potassium acetate to execute Charles Frederick Warner on January 15, 2015, contrary to protocol. An attorney representing Glossip and other Oklahoma death row inmates said logs from Warner's execution initialed by a prison staff member indicated the use of potassium chloride; however, an autopsy report showed 12 vials of potassium acetate were used. According to a report on October 16, 2015, due to a grand jury investigation, it was likely the state would not conduct an execution for more than a year.


Midazolam controversy

Glossip was the named plaintiff in '' Glossip v. Gross'', a U.S. Supreme Court case decided in June 2015 in which a divided Court ruled 5–4 with
Antonin Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia (March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectual an ...
,
Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American lawyer and jurist who has served since 1991 as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. President George H. W. Bush nominated him to succeed Thurgood Marshall. Afte ...
,
Samuel Alito Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. ( ; born April 1, 1950) is an American jurist who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was Samuel Alito Supreme Court ...
,
John Roberts John Glover Roberts Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is an American jurist serving since 2005 as the 17th chief justice of the United States. He has been described as having a Moderate conservatism, moderate conservative judicial philosophy, thoug ...
, and
Anthony Kennedy Anthony McLeod Kennedy (born July 23, 1936) is an American attorney and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1988 until his retirement in 2018. He was nominated to the court in 1987 by Pres ...
voting to allow the execution to proceed, and
Stephen Breyer Stephen Gerald Breyer ( ; born August 15, 1938) is an American lawyer and retired jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and r ...
,
Elena Kagan Elena Kagan ( ; born April 28, 1960) is an American lawyer who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was Elena Kagan Supreme Court nomination ...
,
Sonia Sotomayor Sonia Maria Sotomayor (, ; born June 25, 1954) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2009, and has served since ...
, and
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; Bader; March 15, 1933 – September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until Death and state funeral of Ruth Bader ...
voting to halt it. Sotomayor wrote, "But under the court's new rule, it would not matter whether the state intended to use midazolam, or instead to have petitioners drawn and quartered, slowly tortured to death or actually burned at the stake." The court found the drug
midazolam Midazolam, sold under the brand name Versed among others, is a benzodiazepine medication used for anesthesia, premedication before surgical anesthesia, and procedural sedation, and to treat psychomotor agitation, severe agitation. It induces ...
may be used as a sedative in combination with other lethal injection drugs. The case was originally titled ''Warner v. Gross'', but Glossip replaced Charles Frederick Warner as the plaintiff after Warner was executed in January 2015, also by Oklahoma, before the case was decided. The case was reopened in March 2020 as '' Glossip v. Chandler'' after Oklahoma ended its moratorium on the death penalty, with plaintiffs challenging Oklahoma's execution protocol.


Execution attempts and new trial request

On July 1, 2022, Glossip was one of twenty-five death row inmates to be scheduled for execution in Oklahoma. He was scheduled to be executed on September 22, 2022. On August 16, 2022, Oklahoma Governor
Kevin Stitt John Kevin Stitt (born December 28, 1972) is an American businessman and politician serving as the 28th governor of Oklahoma since 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he was elected in 2018, defeating Democrat and former state Attorney Ge ...
granted a 60-day stay of execution. Glossip was then scheduled to be executed on December 8, 2022. On November 3, 2022, Governor Stitt again granted a stay of execution for Glossip, allowing time for the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to address his pending legal proceedings. He was rescheduled to be executed on February 16, 2023. On January 24, 2023, Glossip's execution was rescheduled to May 18, 2023, after Attorney General Gentner Drummond requested a new execution timetable to accommodate for staff shortages within the Department of Corrections. In March, Drummond announced his office would seek to stay the execution until 2024 to allow an independent counsel to review the case. After the independent review was released, his office filed a motion to
vacate A vacated judgment (also known as vacatur relief) is a legal judgment that legally voids a previous legal judgment. A vacated judgment is usually the result of the judgment of an appellate court, which overturns, reverses, or sets aside the judgme ...
the murder conviction of Glossip in April 2023. Drummond did not "proclaim Glossip’s innocence, but he did note in a news release there was enough doubt of his guilt that the death penalty and his conviction for murder is inappropriate." The case went back to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. On April 20, 2023, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruled against Richard Glossip despite a motion from the state’s Attorney General asking the court to vacate Glossip’s conviction and remand the case to a lower court. This ruling meant that barring clemency being granted or any further appeals to the US Supreme Court, Glossip would be executed by lethal injection on May 18. In late April 2023, a Clemency Hearing held by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board denied Glossip clemency in a 2–2 ruling. The reason why a tied vote resulted in denial of clemency in favor of death is due to the rules stating that there must be a 3–2 majority ruling in favor of clemency. There were only 4 panel members instead of 5 as member Richard Smothermon recused himself due to a conflict of interest, being the husband of Glossip's trial prosecutor Connie Smothermon. In May 2023, Glossip's attorneys filed an application for stay of execution to the U.S. Supreme Court citing new evidence casting doubt on the reliability of the state's star witness Justin Sneed, the man who was convicted of actually carrying out the murder of Barry Van Treese. Oklahoma did not oppose the application and subsequently filed a response supporting the stay of execution. Governor Stitt reiterated that he will continue to follow the Parole Board's lead. Ahead of the board hearing, "Kim Kardashian urged her millions of social media followers to contact the parole board and Stitt in a bid to stop the execution." On May 5, the Supreme Court halted Glossip's May 18 execution pending disposition of his petitions for writs of ''certiorari''. This was after
Dr. Phil Phillip Calvin McGraw (born September 1, 1950), also known as Dr. Phil, is an American television personality and author who is best known for hosting the talk show '' Dr. Phil''. He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, though he ceased ...
, Rep. Kevin McDugle, Rep. Justin Humphrey, and Sister Helen Prejean rallied for the stay. The Attorney General noted that he was not aware of any AG supporting clemency in the past for a death row inmate, but he was in support. In June 2023, Randy Bauman, a board member of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, wrote that it was unfair Glossip did not have all five members in his case and pushed back against the idea that the board is a "safety valve" for an unjust and fallible criminal justice system. The vote had tied because one board member recused himself. Instead of a tie weighing in favor of the convicted, it weighs in favor of the state. The Supreme Court agreed to hear Glossip's case on January 22, 2024. '' Glossip v. Oklahoma'' was argued before the court on 9 October, with associate justice
Neil Gorsuch Neil McGill Gorsuch ( ; born August 29, 1967) is an American jurist who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was Neil Gorsuch Supreme Court ...
recusing himself due to prior involvement in litigation involving Glossip. On February 25, 2025, the Supreme Court vacated Glossip's conviction and ordered a new trial be granted, reversing the State of Oklahoma's affirmation of the previous conviction. The State of Oklahoma subsequently confirmed its intention to try Glossip for the murder a third time, albeit without seeking the death penalty on this occasion.


In popular culture

In 2017, ''Killing Richard Glossip'', a four-part
TV series A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming platf ...
about Glossip's innocence controversy and Oklahoma execution scandal premiered on
Investigation Discovery Investigation Discovery (stylized and branded on-air as ID since 2008) is an American multinational pay television network dedicated to true crime documentaries, similar to corporate sibling HLN. It is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery's netw ...
. His case was covered in a ''
Dr. Phil Phillip Calvin McGraw (born September 1, 1950), also known as Dr. Phil, is an American television personality and author who is best known for hosting the talk show '' Dr. Phil''. He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, though he ceased ...
'' episode.


Personal life

In March 2022, he married Lea Rodger of Florida, an anti-death penalty advocate. Lea is Glossip's fourth wife. He also had one common law marriage at the time he was arrested.Nolan Clay
"First prison wife of death row inmate Richard Glossip says he 'used me for financial gain'."
''The Oklahoman.'' 15 August 2022. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
He has eaten his "last" meal three times.


See also

* Capital punishment in Oklahoma * Execution of Clayton Lockett * Julius Jones, inmate from Oklahoma who has also proclaimed his innocence * List of death row inmates in the United States * List of people scheduled to be executed in the United States *
John M. O'Connor John Michael O'Connor (born December 5, 1954) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 19th Attorney General of Oklahoma, attorney general of Oklahoma between 2021 and 2023. O’Connor was previously a shareholder of Hall Estill ...
* Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board * Richard Smothermon * Edward J. Konieczny * Cathy Stocker * Larry Morris


References


External links


Oklahoma Department of Corrections - Death Row - Scheduled Executions
(accessed September 16, 2015) {{DEFAULTSORT:Glossip, Richard 1963 births 2015 in American law 2015 in Oklahoma Living people People convicted of murder by Oklahoma Place of birth missing (living people) Prisoners sentenced to death by Oklahoma