Supreme Court to hear 'remarkable' Oklahoma death penalty appeal from Richard Glossip

After 27 years on death row, Richard Glossip has been scheduled for execution nine times and served his "last meal" three times. He's still alive thanks to a barrage of appeals and an insistence that he is innocent.

Now, in a dramatic case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Glossip will be joined by the state of Oklahoma -- which had sought his death for decades -- in seeking to overturn his 1998 conviction in a murder-for-hire scheme because of serious mistakes by prosecutors.

The outcome of the case will determine whether he lives and gets a new trial, or dies at the hands of the state, which doesn't want to end his life.

"It's a remarkable case in which both the defense and the prosecution believe this man should not be executed, and yet they have to come to the Supreme Court to seek that relief," said ACLU Legal Director David Cole.

Oklahoma's highest court ruled last year that all of Glossip's avenues of appeal had been exhausted and the sentence could not be reconsidered, even if some state officials found the trial "deeply flawed."

"The Legislature has set forth parameters for this Court in setting execution dates and in issuing stays of execution," the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals wrote in its decision. "The joint request for a stay does not meet the standards of the statute. This Court has found no credible claims to prevent the carrying out of Glossip's sentence on the scheduled date."

During oral arguments Wednesday, the justices must first consider whether they have grounds to intervene in the case. State high court decisions are only rarely reviewed, much less overturned, by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Then, they could consider whether Glossip's constitutional right to a fair trial was violated when prosecutors failed to disclose key evidence and suppressed false testimony during trial.

Glossip was linked to the 1997 killing of his former boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese, only by testimony from the confessed killer, Justin Sneed, who later recanted the claim that he was paid by Glossip to perform the killing. There was no physical evidence.

Sneed -- who received a life sentence in exchange for testifying against Glossip -- had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and been taking psychiatric medication but denied it during trial -- facts uncorrected by prosecutors who knew the truth.

State courts, in narrowly divided rulings over the years, denied all of Glossip's appeals and rejected the state officials' requests to vacate the conviction and initiate a new trial.

"You might think this is extraordinary -- someone having exculpatory evidence in the file that the state didn't disclose and sometimes even allowing people to testify falsely," said University of Chicago Law professor David Strauss. "It's actually not that extraordinary. It actually happens pretty often, and the court should pay attention to that, and, if possible, do something about it."

Because Oklahoma's Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond declined to defend Glossip's conviction on behalf of the state, the U.S. Supreme Court had to appoint a volunteer attorney to argue the case in his place, Christopher G. Michel.

"Nothing in the Constitution compels a state court to provide a particular measure of deference to a state official's confession of error," Michel wrote in his brief.

The case will test the nation's highest court on the competing values of judicial finality after decades of failed appeals; the primacy of state courts on matters of state law; and the meaning of justice in a case with so many apparent flaws.

The justices rarely grant relief in death row cases. In a 2015 decision, the court rejected another Glossip appeal challenging his method of execution.

"It would be remarkable to me for the Supreme Court to say where the state and the individual don't want execution it should go forward nonetheless," said Cole.

The Van Treese family is closely watching the case, hopeful Glossip's conviction and sentence will be upheld.

"In this case, the Van Treese family has waited patiently for justice for 10,047 days," wrote their lawyer Paul Cassell in a brief before the court. "And yet, they are now witnessing the spectacle of their case being stalled by the Attorney General for their home state confessing an error where none exists."

The Court is expected to render a decision in early 2025.