US Supreme Court orders new trial for Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip

The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered a new trial for Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma man on death row. The Court ruled 5-2 in favor of Glossip, reversing a decision by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. This development follows the support of Oklahoma's Republican Attorney General, who joined Glossip in calling for a new trial.

Glossip was convicted for the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, the owner of a motel in Oklahoma City where Glossip worked. He has had nine execution dates postponed and has been served his "last meal" three times. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the opinion, joined by liberal justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, as well as conservatives Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts. Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the case.

Sotomayor stated that the prosecution violated its constitutional duty by failing to correct false testimony. Glossip has consistently maintained his innocence.

The victim, Barry Van Treese, was killed in 1997, and Glossip’s colleague, Justin Sneed, was convicted of the murder but testified that Glossip had instructed him to carry it out. It later emerged that prosecutors failed to disclose that Sneed had been treated for a serious psychiatric condition.

Glossip was first convicted in 1998, but that conviction was overturned in 2001. He was retried and convicted again in 2004. In 2015, his execution was halted just moments before the lethal injection, pending a review of the drugs. The Supreme Court intervened again in 2023, after Oklahoma's attorney general requested a new trial.