Richard Glossip has long maintained his innocence over the 1997 murder-for-hire murder of his former boss.
OKLAHOMA CITY — Former Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip was released from prison Thursday for the first time in nearly 30 years. He is out on bail while awaiting a retrial for a 1997 killing that brought him to the brink of execution three times.
Wearing a gray short-sleeved shirt and jeans, Glossip walked out of the jail hand-in-hand with his wife, Lea Glossip.
“I’m just thankful for my wife and my attorney. Just thankful,” he said. “It’s overwhelming, but also amazing.”
Earlier Thursday, Judge Natalie Mai issued an order setting bail at $500,000. Glossip must wear an electronic monitoring device and is not allowed to travel outside Oklahoma. He is also prohibited from contacting any witnesses in the case or consuming any drugs or alcohol.
His attorney, Donald Knight, has said Glossip is counting on donations to raise money.
“Mr. Glosip has many supporters, and we hope those supporters will be able to afford bail,” Knight said.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out his conviction, and his longstanding claims of innocence have been backed by Kim Kardashian and other high-profile figures.
Glossip was sentenced to death for the 1997 slaying of his former boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese, in Oklahoma City in what prosecutors called a murder-for-hire case.
The Supreme Court ruled last year that prosecutors’ decision to allow key witnesses to give testimony they knew was false violated Glossip’s constitutional right to a fair trial.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced that the state will seeking to retry him He was charged with murder but will not be sentenced to death again.
“The Court fully expects that the State will prosecute the case rigorously and that the defense will provide Glossip with strong representation,” the judge wrote in the order. “The Court hopes that the new trial will be error-free and provide all interested parties and the citizens of Oklahoma with the closure they deserve.”
While he was on death row, Oklahoma courts set nine different execution dates for Glossip, and he came so close to being executed that he ate three of his final meals separately. In 2015, he was even held in a cell next to Oklahoma’s execution chamber, awaiting a lethal injection while strapped to a gurney.
But the scheduled execution came and went. Behind the walls of an Oklahoma prison, Prison officials have their hands full Surgery after learning they were given a deadly drug Does not match execution protocol. Medication mix-up culminates in nearly Seven-year moratorium on executions in Oklahoma.
“Mr. Glossip now has the opportunity to taste freedom while his defense team continues to fight for justice for him against a system in which the U.S. Supreme Court found state prosecutors guilty of gross misconduct,” Knight said.
Van Treese family Ask the Supreme Court Glossip’s conviction and sentence are upheld. An attorney for the family did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Actress Susan Sarandon brought international attention to Glossip’s real-life case after winning an Academy Award for her portrayal of death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean fighting to save a man on Louisiana’s death row in the 1995 film “The Walking Dead.” Glossip’s case was also featured in a 2017 documentary called “Killing Richard Glossip.”
“Richard and I are both grateful for the court’s ruling,” Glossip’s wife, Leah, said in a text message to The Associated Press. “We’ve been praying for this day.”
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