Supreme Court throws out Richard Glossip death sentence, orders new trial in Oklahoma killing

The Supreme Court ordered a new trial Tuesday for Richard Glossip, scrapping his conviction and death sentence in an Oklahoma murder nearly three decades old.

Glossip, 62, was first found guilty in 1998 and ordered executed over the 1997 murder of motel owner Barry Van Treese, Glossip’s former boss. Defense attorneys argued that prosecutors did not fork over important evidence that could have changed the outcome of the case.

“We conclude that the prosecution violated its constitutional obligation to correct false testimony,” liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the 5-3 majority opinion. “Glossip is entitled to a new trial.”

After Republican Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond took office in 2023, he reviewed the state’s death row cases and concluded that Glossip did not receive a fair trial either of the first two times he came before a jury.

Neither side had wanted to defend a lower court ruling rejecting Glossip’s pleas for a new trial, so the Supreme Court had tapped Christopher Michel, a former clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts, to argue the case against a new trial during oral arguments last year.

Everyone involved in the case agrees that motel maintenance man Justin Sneed used a baseball bat to beat Van Treese to death on Jan. 7, 1997. 

The main dispute has been over whether Glossip sent Sneed $10,000 to murder his former supervisor, a claim that Sneed backed with trial testimony. 

Evidence made public in 2015 revealed a witness allegation that Sneed admitted to fibbing about Glossip’s guilt and laughing about it.

The evidence also included a psychiatric evaluation about half a year after the murder, in which Sneed made no reference to Glossip being involved. 

In 2022, Oklahoma officials uncovered additional evidence that prosecutors doubted Sneed’s credibility, a fact which hadn’t been disclosed. 

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