Death row inmate Richard Glossip moves closer to execution after innocence claim rejected

Death row inmate Richard Glossip on Thursday lost the first of two new challenges to his murder conviction.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals voted 5-0 to reject the challenge.

"No trial is perfect, but Glossip's guilty was proven beyond a reasonable doubt before a jury of his peers," Judge David Lewis wrote. "Nothing in his current application causes this Court to contradict the jury verdict."

Glossip, 59, is set to be executed by lethal injection on Feb. 16 for the murder of his boss, Oklahoma City motel owner Barry Van Treese.

“The litigation in this case is not over," Attorney General John O'Connor said after the opinion was released. "But we are relieved for the family of Mr. Van Treese and for the people of Oklahoma that, after waiting so long for justice to be served, one more stage of litigation is behind them.”

Glossip claimed in the challenge that he is "factually innocent."

His claim has received widespread support, including from conservative pro-death penalty legislators in Oklahoma. One outspoken supporter, state Rep. Kevin McDugle, R-Broken Arrow, has vowed to fight to abolish the death penalty in the state if Glossip is executed.

More:Oklahoma death row inmates lose on appeal in challenge to execution protocol

What was Richard Glossip accused of?

The victim was found beaten to death in Room 102 of his motel, the Best Budget Inn, on Jan. 7, 1997. Van Treese was 54 and lived in Lawton.

A motel maintenance man, Justin Sneed, confessed to killing the owner with a baseball bat. He said Glossip pressured him into doing it and offered him $10,000 as payment.

In the challenges, Glossip's attorneys claim Sneed actually killed the motel owner during a botched robbery for drug money. They claim he framed Glossip to avoid getting the death penalty himself. They claim Sneed, a meth addict, made admissions in jail and later in prison about framing Glossip.

In rejecting the first challenge, the appeals court concluded "there is no evidence that Sneed has ever sought to recant his testimony in any meaningful way."

"Further, none of the other witnesses against Glossip have changed their story," Judge Lewis wrote in the 15-page opinion.

"Far from making a claim of factual innocence, Glossip actually raises a theory of a defense that has been his claim from the beginning.

"While it is true that Sneed provided a lion's share of the evidence against Glossip, the evidence of Glossip's involvement was sufficiently corroborated by compelling evidence," the judge wrote. "Glossip was trapped in his own web of deceit and deception when authorities were urgently trying to find Van Treese. This Court need go no further in discussing these facts."

The second challenge to his conviction is still pending before the court.

“This is a very difficult decision to understand," his attorney, Don Knight, said. "The evidence of Rich’s innocence, and the State’s misconduct, is overwhelming and deserving of, at the very minimum, a fair hearing where we can present our evidence.

"We still have another petition pending with the Court setting forth Sneed’s desire to recant his testimony against Rich and, most shockingly, documenting the prosecutor’s serious misconduct in coaching Sneed to change his testimony in the middle of trial. Our fight to free this innocent man will continue, and we remain optimistic that truth and justice will prevail, both for Rich and the citizens of Oklahoma.”

Glossip was first sent to death row after being convicted in 1998. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new murder trial because his defense attorney failed to represent him adequately. He was sent to death row again after the 2004 retrial.

Sneed, 45, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. In interviews this year, he has continued to stand by his statements about Glossip's involvement.

In a recently uncovered letter, Sneed wrote his own attorney in 2003, before the second trial, about recanting. "And parts of me are curious that if I choose to do this again. Do I have the choice of recanting my testimony at anytime during my life, or anything like that," he wrote.

O'Connor and his assistants have told the appeals court that Sneed, an eighth-grade dropout, actually was referring to his plea agreement, not his testimony. They contended he wanted to avoid testifying again or get a better deal.

In one recent interview, according to their legal filing, Sneed said, "I tried to tell them the only legal way that I ever really seen being able to go home would be if I recanted the story about everything ... that already had happened which is really impossible because I told the truth."

Glossip's execution had been scheduled for Sept. 22 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

In August, Gov. Kevin Stitt issued the first of two stays to give the Court of Criminal Appeals more time. The first stay pushed the execution back to Dec. 8. The second stay pushed the execution back to Feb. 16.

Glossip could avoid execution if the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommends clemency and the governor agrees.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip's court challenge fails