Eight years after the Supreme Court blocked his execution so that it could consider a challenge to Oklahoma’s lethal-injection protocol, the justices agreed on Monday to take up the case of Richard Glossip, who is seeking to set aside his conviction and death sentence (article available here).
Richard Glossip, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence and averted multiple attempts by the state to execute him, was sentenced in a 1997 murder-for-hire of the owner of the motel where he worked.
In an unusual twist, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond supported Glossip’s petition for review, telling the court that “justice would not be served by moving forward with a capital sentence that the State can no longer defend because of prosecutorial misconduct and cumulative error.”
Despite Drummond’s doubts about the trial, an Oklahoma appeals court upheld Glossip’s conviction, and the state’s pardon and parole board deadlocked in a vote to grant him clemency.
Glossip has been just hours away from being executed three times. His last scheduled execution, in September 2015, was halted just moments before he was to be led to the death chamber when prison officials realized they had received the wrong lethal drug. That mix-up helped prompt a nearly seven-year moratorium on the death penalty in Oklahoma.
Glossip’s case attracted international attention after actor Susan Sarandon — who won an Academy Award for her portrayal of death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean in the 1995 movie “Dead Man Walking” — took up his cause in real life. Prejean herself has served as Glossip’s spiritual adviser and frequently visited him in prison. His case also was featured in the 2017 documentary film “Killing Richard Glossip.”