Oklahoma’s Top Prosecutor Doesn’t Want to Execute an Innocent Man. A Court Is Forcing Him to Do...

Richard Glossip is almost certainly an innocent man. In the years since police first accused him of murder in 1997, the entire case against Glossip has completely fallen apart. His first trial was tainted by so much prosecutorial misconduct and so many procedural errors that the state judiciary threw out his conviction. His second trial was equally marred by false testimony and mishandled evidence. Republican state legislators have demanded clemency for Glossip, convinced he is innocent. His execution has been scheduled and called off seven times. Earlier this month, Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, even took the extraordinary step of asking the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to vacate his conviction and death sentence, admitting that his second trial was “unfair and unreliable.”

On Thursday, the court refused. In a unanimous opinion, the court waved away overwhelming evidence of innocence and decided that, actually, Glossip is guilty—and must be put to death on May 18. The decision makes a sadistic mockery of the judiciary’s supposed role as a guardian of individual liberties. It favors vengeance over justice. Sadly, it aligns with the current U.S. Supreme Court’s merciless enthusiasm for the swift execution of people who are probably innocent.