Former death row inmate Richard Glossip, who spent nearly 30 years on death row before the Supreme Court overturned his conviction earlier this year, may be released from prison today.
Glossip, 62, will appear in court on Wednesday in Oklahoma City for a bond hearing regarding his potential release.
The former motel manager was convicted in 1997 of commissioning the murder of his former boss Barry Van Treese, the owner of a motel in Oklahoma City. Glossip has maintained his innocence.
The Supreme Court threw out Glossip’s murder conviction in February because a key witness lied in court and prosecutors withheld information about him.
The witness, Justin Sneed, admitted to killing Van Treese, but told prosecutors that the killing was at Glossip’s direction in exchange for $10,000. Sneed, a motel handyman, received a life sentence for the crime, while Glossip was given the death penalty.
In the Supreme Court’s majority ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that prosecutors “knew Sneed’s statements were false” and that “because Sneed’s testimony was the only direct evidence of Glossip’s guilt of capital murder, the jury’s assessment of Sneed’s credibility was necessarily determinative here.”
“Hence, there is a reasonable likelihood that correcting Sneed’s testimony would have affected the judgment of the jury,” she wrote.
Glossip’s attorney, Don Knight, did not immediately return a request for comment. In February, he lauded the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“He had nine execution dates, three last meals, and obviously, to finally get relief has been huge for him, and he’s thrilled beyond words,” Knight said at the time.
Since the ruling, Glossip has been removed from death row and held without bail in the Oklahoma County Detention Center.
The court’s ruling came several years after a group of bipartisan Oklahoma lawmakers championed Glossip’s innocence, commissioning an independent report in his defense.
The 2022 report concluded that “no reasonable jury hearing the complete record would convict Glossip of first-degree murder.”
The latest twist in Glossip’s case came last month when Oklahoma State Attorney General Gentner Drummond said that he intends to pursue a new murder trial against Glossip on a first-degree murder charge.
“While it was clear to me and to the U.S. Supreme Court that Mr. Glossip did not receive a fair trial, I have never proclaimed his innocence,” Drummond said in a statement at the time. “After the high court remanded the matter back to district court, my office thoroughly reviewed the merits of the case against Richard Glossip and concluded that sufficient evidence exists to secure a murder conviction.”
Drummond added that he would seek a life sentence for Glossip rather than the death penalty.
The state attorney general’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.
