Special to the Vanguard
Oklahoma City, OK – Last month, a report released from the state legislature concluded in the mind of many, including Republican legislators, that Richard Glossip was wrongly convicted and that Oklahoma is scheduled to execute an innocent man.
Now his attorneys have filed an application for post-conviction relief, after a recently released independent investigation requested by a bipartisan committee of Oklahoma legislators unveiled new evidence of his innocence.
Glossip’s legal team has requested an evidentiary hearing on the application where they 
could present these new findings.
New evidence in the case details severe negligence on behalf of both police investigators, prosecutors representing the state, and Richard Glossip’s previous court-appointed attorneys.
In one example, the report found that, at the direction of the Oklahoma City District Attorney, the Oklahoma City police intentionally destroyed evidence that pointed toward Glossip’s innocence. Additionally, new findings demonstrate that investigators contaminated their star witness in interrogation, mentioning Richard Glossip’s name six times before the witness—the actual, admitted murderer, Justin Sneed—implicated Glossip in an alleged murder-for-hire scheme.
“The facts and evidence that we now know in this case prove Richard Glossip is an innocent man,” said Glossip’s attorney Don Knight. “We urge the State of Oklahoma to grant this request for post-conviction relief based on the abundance of new evidence that has never before been evaluated by a judge or jury.”
A broad coalition of Oklahomans, including faith leaders and legislators from both sides of the aisle—including many pro-death penalty Republicans—have urged the State to reconsider Richard Glossip’s conviction based on the new and emerging evidence in the case.
In the Oklahoma State Legislature, a bipartisan group of 34 legislators have expressed deep concerns over the merits of Glossip’s conviction, with many members asking the State to take the legal steps necessary to reopen the case.
Despite this, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals set Glossip’s execution date for Sept. 22, 2022.
Glossip, who had no prior criminal history, has been served his last meal three different times and has been given three last-minute stays of execution. Meanwhile, Sneed, the undisputed, admitted perpetrator of this brutal murder, is currently serving life in what is considered to be the best-run and most comfortable medium-security prison in Oklahoma.
