Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board denies clemency for death row inmate Richard Glossip

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board on Wednesday voted to not recommend clemency for Richard Glossip, following emotional statements from the high-profile death row inmate and relatives of the man whose murder he was convicted of orchestrating.

Two board members voted for recommending that Gov. Kevin Stitt grant Glossip clemency, but two members voted against the recommendation, meaning Glossip, 60, didn’t receive the majority support needed under Oklahoma law for Stitt to consider clemency.

One member, Richard Smothermon, recused himself from the hearing because his spouse is a prosecutor who was involved in Glossip’s case. Board members Edward Konieczny and Calvin Prince voted in favor of granting Glossip clemency. Richard Miller and Cathy Stocker voted against.

Glossip, a former hotel manager, was found guilty of orchestrating the 1997 murder of his boss, Barry Alan Van Treese, 54, at the Best Budget Inn in Oklahoma City.

Unless the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, Glossip is set to be put to death by lethal injection on May 18 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

See AG Gentner Drummond's letter: Oklahoma attorney general asks for clemency for death row inmate

His clemency hearing was unusual in that Van Treese’s relatives found themselves arguing against both Glossip’s defense team, and the state attorney general as well.

Typically, victims’ families at such hearings receive the full-throated support of prosecutors.

Instead, they listened to recently elected Attorney General Gentner Drummond join Glossip’s defense team in arguing for clemency by casting doubt on the fairness of the death row inmate’s trial and retrial.

“This is so one-sided,” Alana Van Treese Mileto, Barry Van Treese’s sister, told the board.

Through tears, Donna Van Treese, the widow of Barry Van Treese, told the board about the heartache of raising children with only the memory of a loving husband and father who sang silly songs to his family, helped feed the poor and taught his kids to live a life of integrity.

They were married 18 years when Barry Van Treese was murdered on Jan 7, 1997.

“That’s the date my entire world shattered,” Donna Van Treese told the board.

'I'm not a murderer': Richard Glossip says during hearing he was incriminated

Glossip has maintained his innocence.

He was found guilty and sentenced to death for paying Justin Sneed, a 19-year-old accomplice and maintenance man, to kill Van Treese.

Sneed beat Van Treese to death with a baseball bat and was sentenced to life without parole after testifying that Glossip hired him for the murder.

He said Glossip pressured him into doing it and offered him $10,000 as payment. He testified against Glossip at two trials.

Glossip maintains that Sneed actually killed the motel owner during a botched robbery for drug money.

Glossip claims Sneed incriminated him to avoid getting the death penalty, and that Sneed, a meth addict, made admissions in jail and later in prison about framing Glossip, and also has talked of recanting his testimony.

By live video, he pleaded with the board to recommend clemency.

“I’m not a murderer and I don’t deserve to die for this,” Glossip said.

Richard Glossip case gains national attention

Glossip’s clemency case has received national attention, and the support of celebrities.

Ahead of the clemency hearing, Kim Kardashian tweeted:

“Richard Glossip needs our help, urgently! He has been on Oklahoma’s death row for 24 years for a crime he did not commit and is now scheduled to be executed on May 18th.”

But Glossip’s court appeals have been denied.

In 2013, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Glossip had received “a fundamentally fair” trial in 2004.

In 2014, the state Pardon and Parole Board unanimously denied Glossip’s request for clemency.

The Court of Criminal Appeals rejected two previous challenges to Glossip’s conviction in November.

In March, after gaining full access to prosecutors' notes from the case, Glossip’s attorneys raised a new challenge to his conviction and asked for a stay of his execution.

Drummond at that time asked the court to reset the execution to August 2024.

On April 6, the attorney general asked the court to set aside the conviction and send the case back to the Oklahoma County Courthouse.

He told judges that would be a fair and just result because Sneed gave "false testimony" to the jury at a 2004 retrial regarding his psychiatric treatment.

Sneed testified at his retrial that he was given lithium "for some reason" after at first getting Sudafed for a cold. "I don't know why," he told jurors. "I never seen no psychiatrist or anything."

Drummond, in his April 6 filing, wrote that a defense attorney "likely could have attacked Sneed's ability to properly recall key facts at the second trial."

On April 20, the court rejected those conclusions.

"His testimony was not clearly false," Judge David Lewis wrote in the 23-page opinion. "Sneed was more than likely in denial of his mental health disorders, but counsel did not inquire further."

In a 5-0 conclusion, the court determined that Glossip is not entitled to relief.

Before the Pardon and Parole Board, Drummond along with the defense team for Glossip, argued that the state had long withheld some evidence from Glossip’s defense team.

They told the board that two independent investigations concluded a jury would not find Glossip guilty based on all the available evidence.

Drummond, who believes Glossip is guilty of accessory after the fact, told the board that the death penalty is “an excessive sentence” while Sneed got life in prison without parole.

He expressed disappointment after the hearing.

“Public confidence in the death penalty requires that these cases receive the highest standard of reliability,” Drummond said in a news release. “While the State has not questioned the integrity of previous death penalty cases, the Glossip conviction is very different. I believe it would be a grave injustice to execute an individual whose trial conviction was beset by a litany of errors.”

Drummond said Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna recently instituted new guidelines under which Glossip's case would not qualify for the death penalty in Oklahoma County.

Glossip’s lead attorney, Don Knight, told the board his client grew up in a family plagued by substance abuse.

Glossip left home at age 14, worked for a living and only had a minor traffic offense on his record, Knight said.

Knight argued that there is no reason to believe Glossip “in one moment” became “something he never was.”

“Justin Sneed murdered Barry Van Treese,” Knight said. “Rich Glossip didn’t.”

More: Oklahoma attorney general asks for clemency for death row inmate

Knight objected to Smothermon recusing himself. In Oklahoma County District Court, he filed a motion to halt the clemency because the board wouldn’t have a full slate of five members voting on the matter.

After the hearing, Knight said his team will pursue every avenue in the courts to stop Glossip’s execution.

“We call on Governor Stitt to grant a reprieve of Richard Glossip’s scheduled execution on May 18, 2023 because the execution of an innocent man would be an irreversible injustice,” Knight said in a statement.

In a later development Wednesday, Glossip asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution. His attorneys cited Drummond's support for halting Glossip's execution.

Family of victim says case has been 'been pushed from the court of law to the court of public opinion'

Glossip avoided execution in 2015 when his lethal injection was called off after a doctor realized the wrong heart-stopping drug had been delivered.

He twice married while on death row.

His first wedding was in September 2018 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. The marriage was dissolved in February 2021.

He married Lea Rodger in March 2022.

Her voice trembled when she told the board on Wednesday: “Please hear me when I say I cannot lose him.”

The Van Treese family spoke at length about their heartache.

Derek Van Treese, a son, told the board two juries found Glossip guilty and recommended the death penalty.

“I’ve spent half my life waiting for justice to be served for those responsible,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said, he’s watched his father’s murder case go from a legal matter to a political issue.

“It’s been pushed from the court of law to the court of public opinion,” he said.

After the clemency hearing, members of the Van Treese family told reporters Glossip is a manipulator, and they are happy that, unlike some relatives of murder victims, they were able to recover their loved one’s body.

The family has been mostly silent on the matter while trusting the justice system, they said.

Related to Sneed, who is serving life without parole, Donna Van Treese asked:

“Did Barry have a chance to live the rest of his life?”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OK Pardon and Parole Board denies Richard Glossip's clemency request