In Oklahoma, Richard Glossip will get a new trial after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled late last month that in his first trial, prosecutors knowingly allowed false testimony to be admitted, resulting in a death sentence. Glossip was convicted of and sentenced to death in 1997 for the murder of Barry Van Treese, the owner of an Oklahoma motel where Glossip worked. The actual killer was Justin Sneed, a motel maintenance worker who admitted to beating Van Treese to death with a baseball bat. However, in a plea bargain, Sneed testified that Glossip was the mastermind of the murder and had offered him $10,000 to kill Van Treese. He also falsely claimed that he was not being treated for mental issues, although prosecutors knew he had been prescribed lithium for a psychiatric condition. “Evidence of Sneed’s bipolar disorder, which could trigger impulsive violence when combined with his drug use, would have contradicted the prosecution’s portrayal of Sneed as harmless without Glossip’s influence. Hence there is a reasonable likelihood that correcting Sneed’s testimony would have affected the judgment of the jury,” the Court ruled. Sneed is serving a sentence of life without parole. Glossip has always maintained his innocence.
In Louisiana, 81-year-old Christopher Sepulvado died in the state penitentiary’s infirmary on Angola’s death row. Sepulvado died just weeks before the state planned to kill him. As his lawyer, Shawn Nolan, so eloquently wrote: “The idea that the State was planning to strap this tiny, frail, dying old man to a chair and force him to breathe toxic gas into his failing lungs is simply barbaric. Such pointless cruelty in scheduling his execution in the face of all this overlooked the hard work Chris did over his decades in prison to confront the harm he had caused, to become a better person, and to devote himself to serving God and helping others. It was my honor to fight for Chris, a man who redeemed himself. May he rest in peace.”
In Connecticut, legislators may vote soon on a bill that would ban companies and people in the state “from making, selling, or testing drugs for the purpose of carrying out executions,” WFYI reports. SB 430 was introduced after it was discovered that a Connecticut-based company manufactured the main component of a drug the Trump administration used in its execution spree in 2020 when it killed 13 people in the last six months of Trump’s presidency at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. The bill’s author, Democratic state Senator Saud Anwar, told WFYI he hopes the bill will inspire other states to adopt a similar policy if passed.
In Texas, newly-elected El Paso District Attorney James Montoya announced that his office would not seek the death penalty in the case of Patrick Crusius, who admitted killing 23 people and wounding 22 at an El Paso Walmart in 2019, Texas Public Radio reported. Crusius had previously pleaded guilty to federal charges and was sentenced to life in federal prison. According to TPR, Crusius posted anti-Latino messages on a website frequented by white supremacists, stating he hoped to “stop the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” It was the sixth-deadliest mass shooting in US history and the deadliest attack on Latinos in history, according to TPR.
