Richard Glossip To Be Executed Despite Obvious Innocence, All Available Evidence

It could happen to you.

I have to think one of the most horrifying things in the world must be to be imprisoned or executed for a crime you didn't commit, particularly in a situation where it is clear to anyone with half a brain that you didn't do it.

With Richard Glossip, there really isn't even a question. Factually, he did not kill anyone and no one has ever said he did. The only evidence against him is the fact that a meth head said, after being told by police that he would be executed unless he said Glossip "hired" him to kill motel owner Barry Van Treese, that Glossip "hired" him to kill motel owner Barry Van Treese.

Earlier this month, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond — a Republican even, a Republican in Oklahoma — recommended that Glossip's conviction be vacated, largely on the grounds that executing a blatantly innocent human being would be pretty bad PR for the death penalty. There was hope, for a moment, that not only would Glossip not be executed, but that he would actually be able to get out of prison and finally get a fair trial.

PREVIOUSLY:  Oklahoma AG Moves To Vacate Conviction Of Obviously Innocent Death Row Inmate Richard Glossip 

 New Evidence Makes Death Row Inmate Richard Glossip Look Even More Innocent 

 Obviously Innocent Richard Glossip Gets Stay Of Execution 

That hope has now been dashed, as the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has rejected Drummond's recommendation and determined that Glossip must be executed in May.

Via AP:  

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals’ ruling said his case “has been thoroughly investigated and reviewed,” with Glossip given “unprecedented access” to prosecutors’ files.

“Yet he has not provided this court with sufficient information that would convince this court to overturn the jury’s determination that he is guilty of first-degree murder and should be sentenced to death,” according to the ruling written by Judge David Lewis. [...]

The court's ruling noted that Drummond, in a statement at the time, said he was not suggesting Glossip is innocent, but only that justice would not be served by executing him "based on the testimony of a compromised witness.”

“The attorney general's ‘concession’ does not directly provide statutory or legal grounds for relief in this case,” according to the ruling[.]

The "sufficient information" should be the video footage of Detective Bob Bemo literally telling Justin Sneed that they know Glossip was involved and that he could avoid the death penalty himself if he said that he was. Or the video footage of Bemo literally saying, out loud, that Glossip's attitude, which he read as "smug," was the reason why he believed Glossip was guilty.

 www.youtube.com   

There's also the fact that Justin Sneed's actual daughter has written a letter to the court telling them that her father told her he lied about everything so he could stay in her life. There are the letters Sneed wrote to his attorney about something "eating at him," asking if he had the option to recant his testimony at any point in his life, and the letter his attorney wrote back to him to tell him that if he came forward he would end up on death row.

There are those who have come forward to say that Sneed told them that Glossip was innocent, only to end up with warrants out for their arrest. There is the fact that the DA who prosecuted him had to resign in disgrace after it was discovered that he had produced false evidence in court and frequently bent the rules in order to secure convictions. Eleven people he prosecuted were later found to have been wrongly convicted.

As far as "unprecedented access" goes, Glossip's lawyers are still trying to gain access to evidence that they have been denied, including:

- Surveillance video from the gas station across the streetfrom the motel that none of Glossip’s defense lawyers have ever seen.
- Fingerprintslifted from a shard of glass from Room 102 and from inside Van Treese’s car belonging to someone other than Glossip, Sneed, or Van Treese. These fingerprints have never been searched through databases.
- All evidence taken by police in a search of Sneed’s roomthat could shed light on who the missing accomplice was.
- All information about the suspicious $23,100 found in the trunk of Van Treese’s caron the morning after the murder. Some of this money had blue dye on it that may have come from a bank robbery.
- Results of an alleged lie detector testprosecutors and police claim Glossip failed. There is no proof one was ever administered.
- Notes from detectives of witness statementsthat might contradict their later reports and the trial testimony of various witnesses.

AG Gentner has said he will continue to look for a way to keep Glossip from being executed, largely because he knows that executing an obviously innocent person will make people skeptical of whether or not the death penalty is a good idea or not.

“Ensuring the integrity of the death penalty demands complete certainty,” he said in a statement. “I will thoroughly review the ruling and consider what steps should be taken to ensure justice.”

State Rep. Kevin McDugle (Surprisingly A Republican), who has been advocating for Glossip's innocence, has previously said he will seek impeachment for the judges on the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals if they ruled against him.

“Re: Glossip case, OK GOP state Rep. Kevin McDugle: “If they deny this next chance, then I’ll be seeking impeachment for the judges here in the state of Oklahoma because it’s ridiculous to see the evidence in this case and for them to ignore it." https://t.co/7lvQiAe4O1”

— Jake Tapper (@Jake Tapper) 1682084325 

It will probably not shock you to read that all of the judges on this panel are themselves former prosecutors.

There is still a chance that Glossip may not be executed — he can plead his case to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board in hopes that they will convince Gov. Kevin Stitt to commute his death sentence to a life sentence.

If the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals is so very convinced of Glossip's guilt, they should not be afraid of giving him a fair trial — which he has twice been denied. They should be more than happy to trot their "evidence" in front of the world and really prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Glossip is guilty and deserves the death penalty.

But they're not.

When the evidence that someone is innocent is as blatant as this (or as blatant as it is in the Crosley Green case), it doesn't just undermine the "integrity" of the death penalty or even of the justice system. The government has an obligation to prove to us that the people being executed, that those sent to prison, are guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt," not just because it's cruel to those individual people, but so that we as citizens do not have to walk around fearing that we, too, could be convicted or given the death penalty for a crime that we did not commit. We ought to have a right to that peace of mind, to the hope that mistakes can be corrected.

If Richard Glossip is killed next month for a crime he did not commit, none of us has any reason to believe that we could not just as easily be a victim of a miscarriage of justice just as egregious, with no hope of rectifying the situation. And we should not have to live like that.

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