Oklahoma Lawmakers Urge New Review of Evidence Before Richard Glossip Is Executed for Murder
August 15, 2022
Dozens of state lawmakers in Oklahoma (several of whom support the death penalty) are urging the state to consider new evidence that might clear death row inmate Richard Glossip, who has been scheduled to be executed on September 22.
In a letter dated August 4, 61 state legislators urged Attorney General John O’Connor to join a request by Glossip for a new evidentiary hearing to look over some of the information compiled by national law firm Reed Smith that purports to show Glossip’s possible innocence.
Glossip is on death row for the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese. Glossip did not actually kill Van Treese himself. Rather he was convicted for allegedly masterminding a plan for Justin Sneed (who was 19 at the time) to kill Van Treese. Van Treese owned the hotel in Oklahoma City where the two men worked; Glossip was the manager and Sneed a maintenance man. Sneed claimed that Glossip pressured him and offered him money in return for the deed. Glossip would ultimately be convicted twice—the first conviction being tossed in 2001—and sent to death row almost entirely on Sneed’s claims. For his part, Sneed was spared the death sentence, accepted a plea deal, and sent to prison for life for beating Van Treese to death with a baseball bat.