Drummond ask appeals court to vacate conviction of 25-year death row inmate
(The Center Square) – Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond filed a motion Thursday to vacate the conviction of a man who spent 25 years on death row.
An independent counsel appointed by Drummond said earlier this week that he did not believe that Richard Glossip received a fair trial.
Glossip was convicted in connection with the 1997 murder of his boss, Barry Van Treese. A co-worker confessed to the murder and received a plea agreement to avoid the death penalty. Glossip, who was accused of being an accessory to the murder, was sentenced to death in 1998. He was retried and convicted again in 2004. He received the death penalty after the second trial.
Drummond appointed an independent counsel after he learned about a box of evidence the state had not turned over to Glossip’s defense attorneys, he said. The attorney general also issued a stay of execution for Glossip, who was scheduled to die by lethal injection on Feb. 16.
Independent counsel Rex Duncan said he based the recommendation for a new trial on questions about the polygraph test, the destruction of evidence and the “failure of Glossip’s second trial attorney” to challenge the plea agreement made by Glossip’s co-worker.
In his motion, Drummond said Justin Sneed, who received a life sentence without the possibility of parole for his testimony against Glossip, did not truthfully testify in Glossip’s second trial. Sneed said he was prescribed lithium for a cold but it was for a psychiatric condition, the attorney general said in his motion.
“After thorough and serious deliberation, I have concluded that I cannot stand behind the murder conviction and death sentence of Richard Glossip,” Drummond said in a statement. “This is not to say I believe he is innocent. However, it is critical that Oklahomans have absolute faith that the death penalty is administered fairly and with certainty. Considering everything I know about this case, I do not believe that justice is served by executing a man based on the testimony of a compromised witness.”
The motion was filed with Oklahoma’s Court of Criminal Appeals, which will decide if the conviction is vacated and remanded to district court.
