Ex-Oklahoma inmate who was nearly executed 3 times gets new trial

A new murder trial is due to begin in September for Richard Glossip, the former Oklahoma inmate who spent decades on the state’s death row and was nearly executed three times before the Supreme Court overturned his conviction last year. 

Glossip, 63, was granted bond in May and released from prison for the first time since his arrest on murder charges in 1997. Glossip was convicted and sentenced to death in the killing of his former boss, Barry Van Treese, who owned the Oklahoma City motel where Glossip worked and died after being bludgeoned with a baseball bat, according to court filings.

Attorneys representing Glossip had asked the state judge who ordered his release on bondto consider whether there was enough evidence to retry him. But after a hearing Tuesday, the judge ruled that a new trial would start Sept. 28.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond had pledged to retry Glossip for first-degree murder. He is not pursuing the death penalty again.

“We are pleased with the ruling,” a spokesperson, Leslie Berger, said in an email.

Glossip’s attorney, Don Knight, declined to comment.

Prosecutors have alleged Van Treese’s death was a murder-for-hire scheme. They accused Glossip of setting up Van Treese’s murder, and a co-defendant, Justin Sneed, agreed to testify against Glossip to avoid the death penalty himself. Sneed was the only witness linking Glossip directly to the crime.

But the Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors allowed Sneed to give testimony about his mental health history that they knew was false, and said it violated Glossip’s constitutional right to a fair trial. Drummond agreed that Glossip should get a new trial.

Glossip has maintained his innocence and has drawn support from Kim Kardashian and other prominent figures. Van Treese’s family had asked the Supreme Court to leave Glossip’s conviction and sentence intact.

During Glossip’s time on death row, Oklahoma courts set nine different execution dates for him. He came so close to being put to death that he ate three separate last meals.

Each time, he was spared because of questions about Oklahoma’s planned procedures for lethal injection. In 2015, he was even held in a cell next to Oklahoma’s execution chamber, waiting to be strapped to a gurney and die by lethal injection, when the state’s governor put executions on hold to review its execution protocols.