Richard Glossip (case)

Case background and investigation

Barry Van Treese, the owner of the Best Budget Inn on the outskirts of Oklahoma City, was killed at the motel in January 1997. Justin Sneed, a 19-year-old maintenance worker there, admitted beating him to death with a baseball bat, according to The Intercept. Sneed said that Richard Glossip, who managed the motel, had pushed him to do it. Sneed's account became the basis of the state's case, and under a plea agreement he avoided the death penalty and is serving a life sentence. Prosecutors have never claimed that Glossip struck Van Treese himself, SCOTUSblog noted. Glossip has always denied any part in the killing.

Glossip was convicted and sentenced to death in 1998. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals overturned that conviction in 2001, finding that his lawyers had been ineffective, The Intercept reported. A second jury convicted him in 2004 and he was again sentenced to death. According to his attorney's statement quoted by The Intercept, he faced nine execution dates over the following years.

According to SCOTUSblog, Glossip returned to state court in 2023 after the state disclosed files indicating that prosecutors had known Sneed was prescribed lithium for bipolar disorder after his arrest and had allowed him to testify falsely about it. Two independent reports had questioned the conviction, and Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond supported Glossip's request to set it aside. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals refused, and the state parole board denied clemency.

On February 25, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the state court and ordered a new trial. In an opinion by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court held that prosecutors had violated their duty under Napue v. Illinois to correct testimony they knew to be false, and that because Sneed's testimony was the only direct evidence of Glossip's guilt, the error could have affected the verdict, SCOTUSblog reported. The ruling did not decide whether Glossip is guilty or innocent.

In June 2025 Drummond announced that the state would try Glossip again for first-degree murder, The Intercept reported; News 9 reported that the state is not seeking the death penalty. District Judge Heather Coyle denied bond in July 2025 and later left the case. Glossip's lawyers argued that a 2023 email exchange with the attorney general amounted to a binding plea agreement, under which he would have pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact and been released; the state denied that any deal was reached, and on April 10, 2026, District Judge Natalie Mai declined to enforce it, according to News 9.

On May 14, 2026, Judge Mai set bond at $500,000, with electronic monitoring, a nightly curfew and a ban on leaving the state, and Glossip, then 63, left the Oklahoma County jail that afternoon, The Intercept reported. His trial was first set for September 2026. News 9 reported on July 28, 2026, that it had been moved, with jury selection scheduled for December 9, 2026, and the trial expected to last about three weeks.