Supreme Court overturns problematic conviction of OK death row inmate Richard Glossip - National & International News - TUE 25Feb2025 -

Supreme Court overturns problematic conviction of death row inmate.

21 staffers resign from DOGE in open letter.

Supreme Court overturns problematic conviction of death row inmate

In a 5-3 decision, the Supreme Court has overturned the murder conviction of Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip, 62. Glossip was convicted in 1998 (and again in 2004) of ordering the 1997 murder of his boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese. The state of Oklahoma will now have to decide whether to have a new trial, offer Glossip a plea deal, or possibly throw the case out entirely. Glossip has had nine execution dates in all and has been served his last meal three times.

The only thing tying Glossip to the murder was the word of the actual murderer Justin Sneed. Early on in the investigation, police latched onto the idea that Glossip had ordered Sneed to do the killing. During Sneed’s interview, police urged Sneed to point the finger at Glossip and save himself from death row. Sneed did so, and was sentenced to life in prison.

Sneed testified against Glossip at both trials. While in prison, he bragged to other inmates that he had escaped death row by putting the blame on Glossip. In later years, Sneed wrote to his attorney implying that he wished to recant his testimony against Glossip. His attorney advised him to keep quiet, as his testimony was the only thing keeping him off of death row.

Today’s ruling overturned a lower court’s decision upholding Glossip’s conviction, which allowed his planned execution to move forward despite claims that prosecutors withheld evidence during his trials that would have helped his defense.

Glossip has had an unusual champion in his case, Oklahoma’s Republican state Attorney General Gentner Drummond. Drummond has testified that Sneed gave “false testimony” at Glossip’s 2004 trial regarding his psychiatric treatment. Sneed was being treated for bipolar disorder, which along with his meth addiction could have made him prone to violent outbursts.

21 staffers resign from DOGE in open letter

In a scathing open letter, 21 civil service employees resigned from Elon Musk’s Department of Government efficiency (DOGE). The group said they refused to use their technical expertise to “compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services”.

These employees are former staffers of the US Digital Service, a department created in 2014 to improve the digital services, including websites and IT systems, of federal agencies. This department was suborned to DOGE when Trump came into office. Unlike Musk and his handpicked team of DOGE staffers, the 21 people who resigned today are career civil servants.

In their letter, the civil servants warned that Musk’s handpicked team were political ideologues without the necessary skills or experience to carry out the task they are undertaking, namely slashing the federal workforce.

In a Twitter post, Musk called the mass resignation “fake news” and referred to the staffers as “Dem political holdovers” who would have been fired eventually.

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