The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted Wednesday, April 26, to deny clemency for death row inmate Richard Glossip, who now faces his ninth execution date.
The parole board rejected clemency with 2-2 vote, one week after the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals denied requests from Attorney General Gentner Drummond and Glossip’s defense team for new hearings. The requests were prompted by two separate independent reviews alleging findings that cast doubt on the case.
“Public confidence in the death penalty requires that these cases receive the highest standard of reliability,” Drummond said in a press release. “While the state has not questioned the integrity of previous death penalty cases, the Glossip conviction is very different. I believe it would be a grave injustice to execute an individual whose trial conviction was beset by a litany of errors.”
Glossip is scheduled to be executed May 18 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester for his conviction in the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese. He was convicted twice of first-degree murder in the murder-for-hire plot that accused him of hiring Justin Sneed to kill Van Treese. Sneed is serving a life sentence for the murder after accepting a plea deal to testify against Glossip.
Don Knight, Glossip’s attorney, called on Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt to grant a reprieve of Glossip’s execution, “because the execution of an innocent man would be an irreversible injustice.”
“We will pursue every avenue in the courts to stop this unlawful judicial execution,” Knight said in a Wednesday press release.
Stitt granted Glossip an execution stay in November 2022 to allow the state’s criminal appeals court time to review a petition for a new hearing. But the governor can only approve commutation of a sentence after a favorable recommendation from the Pardon and Parole Board.
Drummond joined Glossip’s defense team in asking the board to recommend clemency following results from separate investigations that alleged issues with the case.
Board members Richard Miller and Cathy Stocker cast the two no votes, with Edward Konieczny and H. Calvin Prince III voting yes for clemency.
Richard Smotherman was not present for the Wednesday hearing after recusing himself in 2022 from any Glossip-related hearings because his wife was the lead prosecutor during Glossip’s second trial in 2004.
Knight said two independent investigations “cast serious doubt” on the case.
“The national law firm Reed Smith undertook a thorough, independent review of this case and concluded that no reasonable juror who heard all the evidence, which has never been presented, would have found Mr. Glossip guilty of murder for hire,” Knight said. “Then, an independent counsel appointed by Attorney General Drummond conducted another comprehensive review of Mr. Glossip’s case and documented multiple instances of error that cast serious doubt on Mr. Glossip’s conviction. It would be a travesty for Oklahoma to move forward with the execution of an innocent man.”
Members of the Van Treese family asked the board Wednesday to see that “justice is served.”
Donna Van Treese, Barry Van Treese’s widow, said the process over the past 26 years “constantly feels like we have let a wound heal and the scab has been torn off multiple times over the years.”
She said her husband’s voice was still important and that when he was alive, he would always tell her to just give him the facts.
“The fact was that he was brutally murdered,” she said. “Our desire and our hope today is that justice will be served for our beloved Barry.”
Amy Knight, a member of Glossip’s defense team, said emotions should not sway the board.
“This family has clearly been through a lot. They do deserve justice and peace. Their pain and emotion is not a reason for the government to continue with an execution,” Amy Knight said. “What the state does here would be a defining moment, and this board should allow the governor to make that choice.”
Glossip, who appeared at the Wednesday hearing via video link from the OSP, said he feels terrible for the Van Treese family, but said he was innocent of anything to do with their family member’s death.
“I did not know Justin Sneed’s claim to go through with the crime,” Glossip said. “I would not pay anybody to kill anybody.”
The death row prisoner said he was thankful to Stitt for issuing two reprieves to allow more time for legal proceedings to continue, and that he was grateful for everybody who continues to fight for him and be by his side.
“I’m not a murderer,” Glossip said. “I don’t deserve to die for this.”