Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
True crime drama at Supreme Court pits Oklahoma against its top criminal court
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/09/nx-s1-5118064/supreme-court-death-penalty-oklahomaThis is completely horrifying and it will be interesting to see how the “pro-life” justices will decide in the matter of state sanctioned homicide.
At the Supreme Court Tuesday, a true crime drama that features a man who has been on death row for more than 25 years, always insisting he is innocent, and a conservative state attorney general in Oklahoma who agrees the prisoner got an unfair trial.
Richard Glossip has had nine execution dates set over the years; he's eaten his last meal three times. He was tried twice and has had multiple appeals, including one that was heard by the Supreme Court involving the proposed method of execution. When the Supreme Court heard that case in 2015, Justice Samuel Alito made it clear that he viewed the appeal as nothing more than a stalling tactic, asking, "Is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty?"
Glossip lost that appeal and many others over the years. But in 2022, Gentner Drummond, the newly elected Republican attorney general of Oklahoma, took office, and one of the first things he did was review the 28 pending death sentences.
"At the end of that exercise, one jumped out," he said in an interview with NPR.
The prosecution's theory was that Glossip, a motel manager, feared that he was about to be fired, and paid the motel handyman to bludgeon the motel's owner, Barry Van Treese, to death.
For years, Glossip's lawyers have argued that the prosecution's theory made little sense, and that the prosecutors concealed, and even destroyed, exculpatory evidence.
Richard Glossip has had nine execution dates set over the years; he's eaten his last meal three times. He was tried twice and has had multiple appeals, including one that was heard by the Supreme Court involving the proposed method of execution. When the Supreme Court heard that case in 2015, Justice Samuel Alito made it clear that he viewed the appeal as nothing more than a stalling tactic, asking, "Is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty?"
Glossip lost that appeal and many others over the years. But in 2022, Gentner Drummond, the newly elected Republican attorney general of Oklahoma, took office, and one of the first things he did was review the 28 pending death sentences.
"At the end of that exercise, one jumped out," he said in an interview with NPR.
The prosecution's theory was that Glossip, a motel manager, feared that he was about to be fired, and paid the motel handyman to bludgeon the motel's owner, Barry Van Treese, to death.
For years, Glossip's lawyers have argued that the prosecution's theory made little sense, and that the prosecutors concealed, and even destroyed, exculpatory evidence.