An Oklahoma judge on Thursday allowed former death row inmates to be released from prison Richard Glossip He will be released on bail while awaiting his retrial for the 1997 murder that put him on the brink of execution Three separate times.
The decision paves the way for Glossip, 63, to leave prison for the first time since his arrest nearly 30 years ago. Last year, the US Supreme Court overturned his conviction, and his claims of innocence have long been supported by Kim Kardashian and other prominent figures.
Judge Natalie May issued an order setting bail at $500,000. Glossip must wear an electronic monitoring device and will not be allowed to travel outside of Oklahoma. He must also not contact any witnesses in the case, or consume any drugs or alcohol.
It was unclear Thursday when Glossip will be released. His lawyer, Donald Knight, said he would only have to pay 10%, or $50,000, and the process could take two or three days.
Knight also suggested that Glossip relies on contributions to raise money.
“Mr. Glossip has many supporters and we hope those supporters can afford bail,” Knight said.
Glossip had been sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of his former boss, hotelier Barry Van Treese, in Oklahoma City in what prosecutors alleged was a murder-for-hire plot.
The Supreme Court ruled last year that prosecutors’ decision to allow a key witness to give testimony they knew to be false violated Glossip’s constitutional right to a fair trial.
Glossip remained behind bars after Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced the state would do so She seeks to retry him Charged with murder but never pursues the death penalty again.
“The Court fully expects that the State will vigorously pursue its case in the future and that the defense will provide vigorous representation to Glossip,” the judge wrote in the order. “The court hopes that a new, error-free trial will provide all parties involved and the citizens of Oklahoma with the closure they deserve.”
During his time on death row, courts in Oklahoma set nine different dates for Glossip’s execution, and he was so close to execution that he had three separate last meals. In 2015, he was held in a cell next to an execution chamber in Oklahoma, waiting to be strapped into a gurney and die by lethal injection.
But the date scheduled for his execution came and went. Behind the walls of the Oklahoma State Prison, Prison officials were scrambling After learning of one of the lethal drugs they received to perform the procedure It did not match the implementation protocols. Mixing the drugs eventually resulted in approx – Suspending the implementation of death sentences for seven years In Oklahoma.
“Mr. Glossip now has a chance to taste freedom as his defense team continues to pursue justice on his behalf against a system that the U.S. Supreme Court found guilty of serious misconduct by state prosecutors,” Knight said.
Glossip’s case attracted international attention after actress Susan Sarandon – who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Sister Helen Prejean, an opponent of the death penalty, who rescues a man on death row in Louisiana in the 1995 film “Dead Man Walking” – took up his case in real life. The Glossip case was also featured in the 2017 documentary “Killing Richard Glossip.”
“Richard and I are grateful for the court’s decision,” Glossip’s wife, Leah, said in a text message to The Associated Press. “We’ve been praying for this day.”