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October 8, 2024

Previewing SCOTUS's latest Glossip argument

Richard Glossip already has a significant Supreme Court ruling associated with his name; nearly a decade ago, SCOTUS considered and then rejected his Eighth Amendment challenge to Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol.  In addition, as the start of this AP article notes, Glossip has had eventful decades on death row after his conviction related to a 1997 murder-for-hire scheme: "Oklahoma has set execution dates nine times for death row inmate Richard Glossip.  The state has fed him three 'last meals.'  Glossip has even been married twice while awaiting execution."

Now, Glossip's case is coming before the Supreme Court again, and this thorough SCOTUSblog preview highlights the latest complicated chapter in an eventful capital punishment procedural.  Here is how that post starts and its framing of the key issues before SCOTUS:

Twice in the past decade the Supreme Court has blocked Oklahoma from executing Richard Glossip. Now the state has joined Glossip to argue that newly uncovered evidence shows prosecutors violated his rights at trial. But even with the Oklahoma’s rare confession of error, both the state’s highest court for criminal cases and te state’s pardon and parole board turned down Glossip’s pleas for relief. On Oct. 9, two former U.S. solicitors general -- Seth Waxman, representing Glossip, and Paul Clement, representing Oklahoma’s attorney general -- will appear before the justices, seeking to persuade them to set aside Glossip’s conviction and death sentence and order a new trial.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond told the court that the state is not looking for an exoneration “by fiat (or at all)” but that “justice would not be served by moving forward with a capital sentence that the State can no longer defend.”

In 1997, Barry Van Treese was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat in the room he was staying in at his Oklahoma City motel, where Glossip worked as a manager. Another one of Van Treese’s employees, Justin Sneed, confessed to killing him while on meth. He is serving a life sentence. Glossip has maintained he had no part in the murder and is innocent over the decades he has been on death row.

The only evidence implicating Glossip in Van Treese’s death was testimony from Sneed, who worked as a handyman at the hotel. Sneed told jurors that Glossip paid him up to $10,000 to kill Van Treese. In exchange for his testimony, prosecutors promised Sneed that he would not face the death penalty....

In granting the case, the justices added a question for the parties to address: Whether the Supreme Court has the power to review the decision by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals at all, or whether it is instead barred from doing so because the decision rests on an “adequate and independent state ground.”...

The second question before the court goes to the heart of the case: Whether the justices should invalidate Glossip’s conviction and sentence because prosecutors failed to correct false testimony by Sneed and turn over evidence that might have helped to clear Glossip.

Because any grant of cert by the Justices in a case of this nature usually means more than a few are concerned about the rulings below, I suspect that both the claims of innocence and his support from Oklahoma's AG has prompted some of the more conservative members of the Court to want to take this new look at this long-running case. And yet, the more conservative member of the Court have, generally sepaking, been much more comfortable showing much more deference to state court capital procedings. It will be interesting to see which Justices at oral argument seem most troubled by Glossip's case.

October 8, 2024 at 10:09 AM | Permalink

Comments

Its been years since I looked at this case, but IIRC, there was a lot of evidence linking him to the crime--he lied about critical facts; he was caught with a large sum of money on him, etc.

Posted by: federalist | Oct 8, 2024 10:11:58 AM

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-7466/268386/20230605142005486_Family%20Amicus%20Glossip_22-7466AmicusVanTreeseODAA.pdf

Crime and Consequences amicus. In the brief, C & C lays out the evidence against Glossip. It's compelling.

Posted by: federalist | Oct 8, 2024 10:18:05 AM

I think, in cases like Glossip's, relief should be predicated on Glossip being subject to in-court testimony with cross-examination. Love to hear his explanation for why he lied.

Posted by: federalist | Oct 8, 2024 10:51:21 AM

As much as the overwhelming evidence deserves focus, so too does the apparent fact that the defense knew of the very exculpatory information it now claims was suppressed. If that's so, then the real goal of this collateral attack is to seek a re-do of the prior ones where suppressed evidence was deemed immaterial. At some point, finality must mean something. I know I will get a torrent of replies saying we have to make sure we're not executing someone who is innocent - but there is little to no doubt about Glossip's guilt. Admitting the supposedly suppressed evidence would have made no difference to the outcome.

Posted by: Da Man | Oct 8, 2024 1:00:10 PM

Indeed, if the defensive attorney was present when the question was asked (regardless of whether she was the one who asked the question) I don't see how this can possibly be a matter of suppressed evidence. This may end up being a question the defense bar wish the Court had not taken.

Posted by: Soronel Haetir | Oct 8, 2024 2:25:15 PM

The reason the Court is taking this ridiculous case is that it feels that there should be no question that it is getting capital punishment right. This nonsense explains the atrocious Buck v. Thaler, the Alabama case where the white shoe law firm screwed the pooch and this BS case. When you look at some of the cases for which the Court has not granted cert., this spectacle becomes an utter embarrassment.

I haven't read the OA transcripts, but my guess is that there is all sorts of faux outrage.

Posted by: federalist | Oct 9, 2024 1:17:53 PM

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