Glossip v. Oklahoma

Glossip v. Oklahoma
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 9, 2024
Full case name	Richard Eugene Glossip v. Oklahoma
Docket nos.	22-7466 22-6500 22A941
Case history
Prior	Glossip v. State, 529 P.3d 218 (Okla. Crim. App. 2023)
Questions presented
1. Whether the State's suppression of the key prosecution witness's admission he was under the care of a psychiatrist and failure to correct that witness's false testimony about that care and related diagnosis violate the due process of law. 2. Whether the entirety of the suppressed evidence must be considered when assessing the materiality of Brady and Napue claims. 3. Whether due process of law requires reversal, where a capital conviction is so infected with errors that the State no longer seeks to defend it. 4. Whether the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals' holding that the Oklahoma Post-Conviction Procedure Act precluded post-conviction relief is an adequate and independent state ground for the judgment.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Clarence Thomas · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan Neil Gorsuch · Brett Kavanaugh Amy Coney Barrett · Ketanji Brown Jackson
Gorsuch took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Glossip v. Oklahoma (Docket No. 22-7466) is a pending United States Supreme Court case. The Court will decide, in light of newly disclosed evidence and the state attorney general's confession of error, whether Richard Glossip will receive a new trial.

Background

Conviction and first appeals

Shortly before dawn on January 7, 1997, Justin Sneed murdered Barry Van Treese, the owner of the Best Budget Inn motel in Oklahoma City. In order to avoid the death penalty, Sneed agreed to testify against Richard Glossip—the motel's manager—and implicate him in an alleged murder-for-hire scheme. At trial, Glossip was convicted of commissioning the murder of Van Treese, and later sentenced to death.

At the time of the murder, Sneed was living rent-free at the Best Budget Inn, where he engaged in informal handyman work. It would later come to light that Sneed was addicted to methamphetamine, and had a history of violent crime. Following his trial in 1998, Glossip appealed on the grounds that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. At trial, Glossip's attorney did not show the jury a video of police appearing to coerce Sneed into implicating him. In 2001, an appeals court agreed, and granted Glossip a new trial.

Amid questions about Sneed's reliability as a witness, Glossip's attorney requested that, before retrial, the State disclose all of Sneed's statements (written and spoken), especially those given between the first and second trials. The State agreed, and insisted that it had disclosed all such statements. At retrial, Glossip's attorney again did not show the footage of the police interrogation, although on the second occasion, the appeals court found that this was acceptable.

The State's evidence

In the summer of 2022, Glossip received several large boxes containing the trial prosecutor's files. Included in the materials was a memorandum appearing to demonstrate the State coaching Sneed into changing material aspects of his testimony. Around the same time, an office representing Sneed provided corroboration demonstrating his desire to recant his original testimony. In early 2023, the State disclosed to Glossip a note that they believe indicates Sneed told prosecutors that he was prescribed lithium by a psychiatrist. This contradicts Sneed's testimony at the second trial, where he stated that, at the time of his arrest, he was not under the care of a psychiatrist and that he had only erroneously been prescribed lithium.

In the spring of 2023, Glossip filed a new application for post-conviction relief raising, among other things, issues regarding knowledge of Sneed's psychiatric treatment and suppression of a note with "on lithium?" written on it.

Independent investigations

Around the same time, the state of Oklahoma (through its Attorney General, Gentner Drummond) was conducting its own inquiry into the reliability of Glossip's conviction. This was in addition to another independent investigation undertaken by sixty-two Oklahoma legislators. The Drummond report stated that the intentional withholding of evidence, particularly the evidence regarding Sneed's bipolar disorder, casts serious doubt on the validity of Glossip's conviction. In light of this report, Drummond requested that the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) reverse Glossip's conviction based on the prosecutor's failure to correct Sneed's false testimony. Despite this, the OCCA denied Glossip's application.

Supreme Court

On April 26, 2023, Glossip submitted an application to the Supreme Court, requesting that his execution be stayed, pending the Court's disposition of petition for writs of certiorari. On May 5, Glossip's application for stay of execution was granted. On January 22, 2024, Glossip's petitions for writs of certiorari were granted. On January 26, the Court appointed Christopher G Michel to brief and argue the case as amicus curiae in support of the OCCA’s judgment below.

Glossip's case was argued before the Supreme Court on October 9, 2024. Due to his prior involvement in the case, including Glossip v. Gross, as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, Justice Gorsuch is recused from the case's proceedings.

See also

• Glossip v. Gross
• Glossip v. Chandler