Death Penalty Information Center
By Hayley Bedard, Jun 10, 2025
On June 9, 2025, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced that his office will retry death row prisoner Richard Glossip but will not seek the death penalty. AG Drummond’s decision to retry Mr. Glossip follows the February 2025 United States Supreme Court ruling in Glossip v. Oklahoma, in which the high Court threw out Mr. Glossip’s 2004 conviction and ordered a new trial because prosecutors allowed a key witness to lie in court and withheld crucial information about the same witness. Mr. Glossip had previously had nine execution warrants and came within an hour of being executed. AG Drummond had supported Mr. Glossip’s request for a new trial at the Supreme Court and admitted that Mr. Glossip’s due process rights had been violated, but he has steadfastly refused to support Mr. Glossip’s innocence claims.
“Unlike past prosecutors who allowed a key witness to lie on the stand, my office will make sure Mr. Glossip receives a fair trial based on hard facts, solid evidence and truthful testimony. – Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond
In explaining the decision not to seek the death penalty, the AG’s office noted that the man who admitted to actually murdering Barry Van Treese with a baseball bat, Justin Sneed, is serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. In a statement released following the status hearing, AG Drummond said, “While it was clear to me and to the U.S. Supreme Court that Mr. Glossip did not receive a fair trial, I have never proclaimed his innocence.” He explained that after a review of the merits of the case, his office believes there is sufficient evidence to secure a murder conviction. AG Drummond also asserted that “Unlike past prosecutors who allowed a key witness to lie on the stand, my office will make sure Mr. Glossip receives a fair trial based on hard facts, solid evidence and truthful testimony.” His office will seek a life sentence for Mr. Glossip, who has already spent 27 years in prison.
Mr. Glossip has always maintained his innocence in the 1997 “murder-for-hire” of Barry Van Treese, his boss at an Oklahoma City motel. Justin Sneed, a coworker of Mr. Glossip’s, confessed to killing Mr. Van Treese but testified Mr. Glossip had paid him to do so and helped cover up the killing. Mr. Sneed was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his involvement in the murder.
Mr. Glossip was first sentenced to death in 1998. This conviction was overturned in 2001. In 2004, the state again pursued a death sentence, and a jury agreed. According to the 2025 Supreme Court decision, at trial, Mr. Sneed lied about being treated for a mental health condition, including that he was taking lithium for bipolar disorder. In the opinion, Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote that “had the prosecution corrected Sneed on the stand, his credibility plainly would have suffered. The correction would have revealed to the jury not just that Sneed was untrustworthy (as amicus point out, the jury already knew he lied to the police), but also that Sneed was willing to lie to them under oath.” Justice Sotomayor added that “such a revelation would be significant in any case and was especially so here where Sneed was already ‘nobody’s idea of a strong witness.’”
An independent investigation carried out by the law firm Reed Smith previously found that Mr. Sneed discussed recanting his testimony over the course of a decade, both before and after Mr. Glossip’s 2004 conviction. A handwritten note from Mr. Sneed to his attorneys, states, “Do I have the choice of recanting at any time during my life?” An additional handwritten note indicates that Mr. Sneed believed his testimony to be “a mistake.” These notes were never given to Mr. Glossip’s defense counsel. Reed Smith’s investigation also included documentation of conversations between Mr. Sneed and Reed Smith lawyers in which he admitted he talked with his mother and daughter about recanting his testimony, something he previously denied.
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Tags: death penalty, Don Knight, Gentner Drummond, oklahoma, retrial, Richard Glossip
