Richard Glossip

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Tuesday, May 2, 2023

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When the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board decided not to recommend clemency for death row inmate Richard Glossip, the case highlighted the role clemency plays in the death penalty system.

Key Points:

When the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board decided not to recommend clemency for death row inmate Richard Glossip, the case highlighted the role clemency plays in the death penalty system.
Glossip had asked the board to commute the sentence he had been given for his role in an alleged murder-for-hire plot.
He was convicted of paying his co-defendant, Justin Sneed, to kill Barry Van Treese in 1997.
The board, which met April 26, 2023, was split 2-2 over recommending that Glossip’s sentence be changed to life in prison.

The role of the attorney general

In Oklahoma, family members of the victim are also given time to make their views known.
In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court gave its approval to that kind of procedure when it held that clemency hearings must afford due process to the participants.
“I’m not aware of any time in our history that an attorney general has appeared before this board and argued for clemency.

Clemency as grace – or justice

In United States v. Wilson, a decision from 1833 and the first case about clemency to be decided by the United States Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Marshall made that distinction clear.
Instead of equating clemency and justice, he called clemency an “act of grace, proceeding from the power entrusted with the execution of the laws.” Clemency, Marshall continued, “exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed.
It is … delivered to the individual for whose benefit it is intended, and not communicated officially to the court.” A little more than 20 years after Marshall wrote that, another Supreme Court justice, James Wayne, reinforced this separation of clemency and justice.
Clemency hearings are now generally just another arena to which inmates like Richard Glossip can appeal for justice.

Clemency is rare in capital cases

But, from the perspective of clemency’s recent record in capital cases, the result should not have been surprising.
As my research has shown, a century ago clemency was granted in about 25% of capital cases.
In the same period, more than 1,500 cases have proceeded to execution.” While the center does not indicate how often clemency was sought in those cases, requesting clemency is often a standard part of the efforts death penalty defense lawyers make to try to save their clients.
It is hard to get clemency in capital cases because, as the center explains, “Governors are subject to political influence, and even granting a single clemency can result in harsh attacks.” As a result, “clemencies in death penalty cases have been unpredictable and immune from review.” And what is true nationwide is also true in Oklahoma where during the past half-century there have been only five grants of clemency in capital cases.