Speaker 1: Heys. It is Wednesday, June twenty fourth, and he spent
Speaker 1: thirty years on death row. Kim Kardashian paid to get
Speaker 1: him out of prison, and now the state of Oklahoma
Speaker 1: is trying to put him right back in. And with that,
Speaker 1: welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. In what
Speaker 1: has been a thirty year saga, an ordeal and robes.
Speaker 1: They keep writing new chapters on this story for this
Speaker 1: death row former death row in.
Speaker 2: Me, that's right, and yes, saga is a really good
Speaker 2: way to put it. We're talking about sixty three year
Speaker 2: old Richard Glossip. And yes, he spent nearly three decades
Speaker 2: on death row. And it wasn't until last year twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five February, the Supreme Court of the United States
Speaker 2: overturned his conviction. This is significant. And then yes, just
Speaker 2: last month, he is released on bond. He walks out
Speaker 2: of prison for the first time in nearly thirty years,
Speaker 2: thanks to the Supreme Court. And yes, thanks to Kim
Speaker 2: Kardashian who paid.
Speaker 1: She footed the bill for him to get five hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. She footed that bill. She is not the
Speaker 1: only celebrity who has been a part of this. I
Speaker 1: think Richard Branson is the other big name that I've seen.
Speaker 1: But a lot of groups or this isn't just an
Speaker 1: anti death penalty case. This is okay. So a lot
Speaker 1: of people think this is a guy who is innocent,
Speaker 1: who Robes was on death row for thirty years. But
Speaker 1: when you think about how close he got to dying
Speaker 1: several times in that thirty years, that's the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that'll give you chills about the death penalty in
Speaker 1: this country.
Speaker 2: Babe. He had nine execution dates. Think about that. The
Speaker 2: governor of Oklahoma throughout the years, it wasn't always the
Speaker 2: same governor actually scheduled his execution nine different times, and
Speaker 2: three of those times he nearly died. One of them
Speaker 2: he was moments away. We'll get into that in just
Speaker 2: a moment. But he has been through. If he is innocent,
Speaker 2: can you imagine what this man has gone through over
Speaker 2: the past three decades.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the so we talk about there Robes how
Speaker 1: close he's gotten to death. He got close and he
Speaker 1: wasn't saved because there was an issue necessarily with his
Speaker 1: case where people talked about his innocence. No, these were
Speaker 1: technicalities and having to do with drugs and whatnot. But
Speaker 1: we will get more into that and how close he came,
Speaker 1: including several last meals that he ate for Robes. He
Speaker 1: was in court, and the reason we're talking about this
Speaker 1: now is because he was just in court waiting for
Speaker 1: his fate to find out robes whether or not they're
Speaker 1: trying to put his butt right back on death row.
Speaker 1: The answer there is no, however, correct.
Speaker 2: So he was trying through his attorneys to have this
Speaker 2: judge go back to the beginning of his case and
Speaker 2: actually have a preliminary hearing where they even they had
Speaker 2: to actually go over whether or not there was enough
Speaker 2: evidence to proceed with a trial. That's what his attorneys wanted.
Speaker 2: The State of Oklahoma said, nah, the Supreme Court, yes,
Speaker 2: may have vacated his conviction, but they actually said he
Speaker 2: needs a new trial. And so the judge agreed with
Speaker 2: the State of Oklahoma and set a trial date now,
Speaker 2: and this will be his gloss of third trial. He
Speaker 2: actually gave him the date of September twenty eighth, So
Speaker 2: just in a few months he will go back to
Speaker 2: court to face murder charges once again. But there is
Speaker 2: a difference. This time. The state of Oklahoma will not
Speaker 2: be seeking the death penalty. They will be seeking life
Speaker 2: in prison.
Speaker 1: But again, this is a guy who didn't kill anybody,
Speaker 1: but he is the one who is who was credited
Speaker 1: and convicted for putting the whole motion murder for higher
Speaker 1: in motion, and he got the death penalty. This case
Speaker 1: is a mess. It's a legal mess in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways that have to do with prosecutorial misconducts conduct
Speaker 1: EVI being withheld roles. You don't have to be a lawyer.
Speaker 1: You can watch just a half a season of Law
Speaker 1: and Order and you know one of the biggest no
Speaker 1: nos is withholding evidence from the defense.
Speaker 2: Of course, he should get a new trial, correct and
Speaker 2: to kind of go through how he's now on his
Speaker 2: third trial in two thousand and one. His first trial
Speaker 2: was overturned because the conviction was overturned because they ruled
Speaker 2: the glossip didn't have adequate counsel. So he was retried
Speaker 2: in two thousand and four where he was once again
Speaker 2: sentenced to death. And then yes, now in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court overturned that two thousand and four conviction,
Speaker 2: saying that there were trial errors and that this state
Speaker 2: used testimony that it knew was false and that is
Speaker 2: the reason why he is now getting his third trial.
Speaker 1: And again Roll there was a was a napew violation
Speaker 1: that they call it. This is essentially, if a prosecutor
Speaker 1: is up there and you hear your your witness give
Speaker 1: a false statement, you are under obligation to correct it.
Speaker 1: They didn't. They called this a knapw violation. It is
Speaker 1: a clear and plain as day, you know your witness
Speaker 1: is lying, you're supposed to correct it. They did not.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it's significant because the witness was truly the
Speaker 2: only evidence that the state has against Glossops. So this
Speaker 2: all goes back to a nineteen ninety seven killing in
Speaker 2: Oklahoma city of Best budget In owner Barry Van Trees.
Speaker 2: Now Barry Van Trees was Glossop's boss, and so prosecutors
Speaker 2: say that glossip had a murder for higher scheme where
Speaker 2: he asked someone else, a worker there his name is
Speaker 2: Justin Snead, to kill Van Trees so that he could
Speaker 2: take over the motel. That is the prosecution's theory and
Speaker 2: that is what two different juries actually convicted him for.
Speaker 2: That he was the mastermind. So Justin Snead, the man
Speaker 2: who actually admitted to beating this motel manager with a
Speaker 2: baseball bat. He is the one. He got a deal
Speaker 2: with prosecutors to get life in prison, took the death
Speaker 2: penalty off the table if he pleaded guilty and then
Speaker 2: testified against.
Speaker 1: Glossip, which he did. He took that deal, and he
Speaker 1: is the only direct evidence of the direct link. Now
Speaker 1: they have other type of evidence, circumstantial stuff, but the
Speaker 1: only direct evidence that they do have happens to be
Speaker 1: this guy. So it's not a stretch Robes to call
Speaker 1: this guy the star witness. He gave false testimony. That testimony,
Speaker 1: though Robes, wasn't directly related to the crime itself and
Speaker 1: what happened. This is fascinating. The Supreme Court made this
Speaker 1: ruling that he is due process was violated for glossips
Speaker 1: because this guy gave up, got up there, and the
Speaker 1: testimony in question had to do with his medical background.
Speaker 1: It had to do with whether or not he was
Speaker 1: bipolar and was on lithium rose. I didn't think much
Speaker 1: of that, but the Supreme Court ruled if the jury
Speaker 1: had known about this background, known that he had a
Speaker 1: violent background, known that he was on lithium, known that
Speaker 1: he was severely had the severe mental illness, it might
Speaker 1: have changed how they viewed him as a witness.
Speaker 2: Rose, that makes sense to me absolutely. And look, Judge
Speaker 2: Sonya Sotomayor, she was She wrote for the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: in their decision, and I thought it was interesting how
Speaker 2: she put it. She said, had the prosecutors corrected Sneed's
Speaker 2: false testimony, his credibility absolutely would have suffered. And this
Speaker 2: is what she wrote. That correction would have revealed to
Speaker 2: the jury not just that Sneid was untrustworthy, but also
Speaker 2: that Snead was willing to lie to them under Oh.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. You know who dissented, Clarence Thomas. Clarence
Speaker 1: Thomas dissented in this and his argument was it didn't
Speaker 1: It wasn't material to the case itself. He said, even
Speaker 1: if they had known all this stuff, it wouldn't have
Speaker 1: necessarily changed the outcome of change how they viewed this guy. Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: but Robes, the guy got up there. It didn't sound like,
Speaker 1: why is it that he was bipolar have anything to
Speaker 1: do with him, whether or not he's recounting the story
Speaker 1: accurately about the murder. Well, Robes, if you're willing to
Speaker 1: lie to me on oath about the most basically to.
Speaker 2: Make yourself look better.
Speaker 1: And they said they were billing him as a choir boy.
Speaker 1: Almost the prosecution was saying, oh, he was just a
Speaker 1: sweet kid, didn't have violent tendencies, and he would never
Speaker 1: have done this had it not been for mister Glossop.
Speaker 2: Wow. It's also of note. I think just given all
Speaker 2: of that, that the whole reason why Glossop's case ended
Speaker 2: up the Supreme Court was because of the Oklahoma Attorney General.
Speaker 2: He said in twenty twenty three that he was going
Speaker 2: through boxes if new evidence and it basically persuaded him
Speaker 2: the Gossip was not given a fair trial. Now, he
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily believe Gossip is innocent, He's not saying that,
Speaker 2: but he did believe that he deserved a new trial.
Speaker 2: So for the Oklahoma Attorney General to make that statement,
Speaker 2: that is significant. And so he asked Scotis to stop
Speaker 2: glossips execution.
Speaker 1: They stopped the execution. And we do a lot of
Speaker 1: these cases and executions in the country. You gotta have
Speaker 1: a fair trial, I mean, this is no matter what.
Speaker 1: You got to have a fair trial. So he's still
Speaker 1: in he's out of prison, stick.
Speaker 2: Correct, He's living with his wife, He's got a bunch
Speaker 2: of stipulations, He has an electronic monitor, he has a curfew,
Speaker 2: we can't go out at night, a lot of monitoring
Speaker 2: going on. But yes, he is free until trial, which
Speaker 2: is huge.
Speaker 1: But yesterday was huge in that it was possible this
Speaker 1: could have been over.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the judge goes in, no, not enough evidence here,
Speaker 1: have the prelarminary hearing. He said, naw, we're just going
Speaker 1: to go forward. So that's significant. But Rome September, this
Speaker 1: is going to be huge. Now this has been thirty years.
Speaker 1: Will we finally get an answer and he will finally
Speaker 1: learn his fate ultimately.
Speaker 2: Yes, because Justin's need is going to go back up
Speaker 2: on that witness stand and testify once again. This is
Speaker 2: certainly going to be significant, and so yes, he will
Speaker 2: have a third time in court fighting for his life.
Speaker 2: But when we come back, we're going to tell you
Speaker 2: about the three times Gossip was nearly executed, including the
Speaker 2: time that it led to a seven year moratorium on
Speaker 2: executions in this state of Oklahoma. Welcome back everyone to
Speaker 2: this episode of Amy and TJ. We are talking about
Speaker 2: a former Oklahoma death row inmate. His name is Richard Glossip.
Speaker 2: He is now heading to a third trial the death
Speaker 2: penalty has been taken off the table, but he still
Speaker 2: will be fighting for his life. He has maintained his
Speaker 2: innocence from the very beginning in the baseball bat beating
Speaker 2: death of his motel boss. He wasn't the one. He'd
Speaker 2: never been accused of actually physically committing the killing, but
Speaker 2: he is and had been convicted of being the mastermind
Speaker 2: of inciting another employee to do it at his bidding,
Speaker 2: but he has maintained that never was the case. And
Speaker 2: while he may be now out on bond thanks to
Speaker 2: Kim Kardashian, he spent nearly thirty years on death row,
Speaker 2: and he had nine different execution dates. He had three
Speaker 2: separate last meals.
Speaker 1: Just imagine that you're eating that food thing and you're
Speaker 1: not You're going to die. I mean this, that's intense.
Speaker 1: And you know we talk about cruel and unusual. That is, yes,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't put a I don't care what you got
Speaker 1: to be better than that. That's that is inhumane.
Speaker 2: That is awful, not once, not twice awful, but three times.
Speaker 2: And this one gives me chills to imagine this. The
Speaker 2: third time he came so close to dying, he was
Speaker 2: actually being held in this cell next to the death chamber.
Speaker 2: So that's how close this was. In twenty fifteen. He's
Speaker 2: literally moments away from being strapped to the gurney for
Speaker 2: lethal injection. He's sitting there waiting, But meantime, behind the
Speaker 2: other wall, prison officials are literally scrambling because they found
Speaker 2: out that one of the drugs in this lethal cocktail
Speaker 2: that they put together in the state of Oklahoma didn't
Speaker 2: match the protocols that were in place for the states,
Speaker 2: so they were trying to figure out how they could
Speaker 2: remedy it. There was basically a mix up in the
Speaker 2: drugs in the cocktail.
Speaker 1: He was saved by incompetence.
Speaker 2: He was actually saved by incompetence. But that drug mix
Speaker 2: up that caused so much confusion and, as you pointed out,
Speaker 2: pain and suffering that led to a seven year moratorium
Speaker 2: on executions in Oklahoma. You hear about this happening in
Speaker 2: many different states. They had so many different botch lethal
Speaker 2: injection situations that a lot of states, a lot of
Speaker 2: governors said Hey, we're going to put a stop to this,
Speaker 2: and we're going to try to figure out a better
Speaker 2: way to execute people, a more humane way, a way
Speaker 2: where we're not going to constantly run into problems. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: for seven years, they did not execute anyone in Oklahoma
Speaker 2: because of his nearly botched execution in twenty fifteen, ropes.
Speaker 1: His life is being saved. He got a seven year, right,
Speaker 1: he got a seven year many years for him extra
Speaker 1: seven years. This is one of those stories rogues. If
Speaker 1: this guy ends up off death row, if he goes
Speaker 1: to this trial and he is found not guilty, man,
Speaker 1: I might be on board with anybody who wants to
Speaker 1: say we should get rid of the death penalty in
Speaker 1: this country. The rope that close to killing out. We've
Speaker 1: covered other stories of guys whose executions have been stopped
Speaker 1: and gotten close and they end up being in We
Speaker 1: can't accidentally kill an innocent guy like that guy, however
Speaker 1: we need to do that. We can not do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, just to see him yesterday, I
Speaker 2: saw the pictures. There were no cameras in the courtroom,
Speaker 2: but of course this is a massively high profile case
Speaker 2: in the state of Oklahoma, so lots of reporters there
Speaker 2: on the scene. But just to see him in plain
Speaker 2: clothes with his wife holding her hand, walking out of
Speaker 2: court back to their home. It's just a remarkable scene
Speaker 2: to witness. And I am I wonder. Yes, the Attorney
Speaker 2: General stepped in, Yes, Kim Kardashian stepped up, Richard Branson
Speaker 2: stepped up. There are a lot of groups that have
Speaker 2: stepped up on his behalf because they do believe in
Speaker 2: his innocence. But if it weren't for all of those
Speaker 2: people and some just happenstance situations where they weren't able
Speaker 2: to carry out the execution that was set to happen,
Speaker 2: it's a miracle. This man is alive and free technically
Speaker 2: right now today.
Speaker 1: And you know it should be okay, this we've got
Speaker 1: and this should be noted that, yes, the guy who testified,
Speaker 1: that's the only direct evidence. Sure, and that's a questionable witness. Sure,
Speaker 1: there were other circumstantial things that went on. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just that guy, Don't get me wrong. That's the strongest evidence.
Speaker 1: But glossip. They have evident he lied to police initially
Speaker 1: in the conversations about what he knew about the murder.
Speaker 1: He lied when he didn't tell the until later that
Speaker 1: Snead had confessed to him. Even he helped Sneak clean
Speaker 1: up after the murder as well, so stuff pieced together.
Speaker 1: He wasn't necessary. It just didn't come out of nowhere,
Speaker 1: and we're just depending on one bipolar guy.
Speaker 2: That's true. He wasn't just some random innocent bystander. He's certainly,
Speaker 2: and he was initially charged with accessory after the fact,
Speaker 2: and that that seems that that was absolutely inappropriate charge
Speaker 2: given what we know about the situation. But it is
Speaker 2: very likely that he might have just been afraid of
Speaker 2: getting swept up into it or part of it, or
Speaker 2: who knows, or he could have actually been the mastermind.
Speaker 2: We don't know. Two juries thought he was the masterman,
Speaker 2: mined and convicted him, but it was almost solely based
Speaker 2: on the testimony of Snead.
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated to see because in the evidence they found
Speaker 1: these new boxes, there were some notes that said it
Speaker 1: Sneed might have wanted to recant his testimony at some point. Propes,
Speaker 1: this is crazy. You got eight nine boxes that you
Speaker 1: failed to hand over decades ago.
Speaker 2: And I do appreciate that the Attorney General had a
Speaker 2: moral compass look and they're supposed to, but forgive me
Speaker 2: if sometimes we get a little jaded in how we
Speaker 2: view some folks who are supposed to be there to
Speaker 2: uphold the law. But it is nice to hear and
Speaker 2: see a moment where an Attorney General who knew that
Speaker 2: this would not look good, so to speak for the
Speaker 2: Oklahoma justice system to admit that this took place. But
Speaker 2: that actually is what makes the Oklahoma justice system look
Speaker 2: good now that he was willing to be transparent about
Speaker 2: it and actually get us to this day where now
Speaker 2: we can maybe perhaps figure out where the truth lies.
Speaker 1: I think they all still look bad. This is crazy. Well,
Speaker 1: if you're withholding evidence, you got a witness, you know
Speaker 1: in Lyne, you don't correct. That's now that is criminal.
Speaker 2: That is criminal. That is and we'll see what happens
Speaker 2: with this, but we will certainly be following this story
Speaker 2: of Richard Glossip in the meantime, though, we always appreciate
Speaker 2: you listening to us. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ. Holmes.
Speaker 2: We'll talk to you soon.