Oklahoma court won't stop Glossip execution | Hacker News Reader

Oklahoma court won't stop Glossip execution

lawdork.com

45 pointsiudqnolq75 comments

This is just the court following the law Oklahoma has enacted, which does not give it the power to act here. It's not forcing anything—it's doing the nothing it's empowered to do. If Oklahoma wants its court to have the power to grant relief, it can change its law. (Or better, just get rid of the death penalty entirely.)

The statute in question ([0] – see (D)(8)) says the court may not consider the merits or grant relief unless there are facts or legal rationales that could not have been raised earlier. The court isn't empowered to do something just because two parties agree.

Also, the governor can commute the sentence, as he did for Julius Jones.

[0] https://casetext.com/statute/oklahoma-statutes/title-22-crim...

> The court isn't empowered to do something just because two parties agree.

It can find executing an innocent person to be unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment, and that the statute preventing review of the case on its merits is similarly unconstitutional as a result.

Do you want courts ignoring other precedents from the Supreme Court whenever they feel like it? Or considering arguments that the parties don’t make, just so that they can reach the outcome they desire and view as a moral issue?

As bad as things can be in a system that doesn’t always reach a just result, I think it’s almost certainly worse to have courts that feel empowered to do whatever they want.

Yes, I absolutely want the courts to periodically revisit things that are clear miscarriages of justice.

How do you define a miscarriage of justice?

What definition wouldn’t include “you’re innocent, everyone involved now agrees on that, but you proved it too late, so die”?

That doesn't generalize and two people is not "everyone".

If everything could be reliably generalized we wouldn’t need appeals/Supreme courts in the first place.

There seems to be little dissent on the “this conviction was unfair” front in this case.

There’s no dissent on the unfair conviction. The dissent is on the remedy. Courts don’t make law. That’s a good thing. The legislature can fix the law to allow revisiting cases or abolish the death penalty, or both. The governor can pardon this man. The courts already mishandled the case, why do we expect them to fix it? This is why we have separate but equal branches of government.

> Courts don’t make law. That’s a good thing.

So is the ability to invalidate laws that violate the constitution. "You can't do that" isn't making law.

The law preventing judicial review in this case violates the Eighth Amendment. If a state passed a law saying "courts can't intervene in First Amendment cases" it'd clearly not pass muster and get struck down; why do you feel it works here?

> The legislature can fix the law to allow revisiting cases or abolish the death penalty, or both. The governor can pardon this man.

And if they do not, the court should step in to fix the Eighth Amendment violation. The Eighth is definitely law, and it definitely applies to all three branches of Oklahoma government.

> The courts already mishandled the case, why do we expect them to fix it?

Why wouldn't we? They do that all the time; again, it's why we have appeals courts.

Then appeal it, but that's not a question this court can answer about this case. They made the decision they have to make. The appeals court is the one that can rule on constitutionality.

This decision was by the appeals court.

> The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Thursday denied Richard Glossip’s request to vacate his conviction — despite the fact that the state’s Republican attorney general agreed with the request from Glossip’s lawyers.

This is an interesting situation where the judicial system seems truly out of control. Republicans are generally more likely to be in favor of the death penalty, but the attorney general and governor are Republicans that have intervened because they believe that justice is being miscarried. Nevertheless, the appeals court is forcing an execution. Perhaps the panel of judges is using stare decisis to conclude: "you had your chance to present the truth before, but didn't, so too bad". If the entire political spectrum disagrees with the judges, it makes a clear case that the problem is the system. I hope the governor will grant pardon or clemency if the court won't reconsider.

Clemency seems like the correct remedy here. The court only interprets the law as it is written. The system has a failsafe for this situation. Clemency is that failsafe.

This is yet another example of why legislatures need to eliminate capital punishment. It's something we have to get right 100% of the time, and that is impossible.

> The court can't just decide to not enforce the law.

The court doesn't enforce anything; that's the executive's job. They can decide the law is unconstitutional, and thus unenforcable.

You're right. Updated.

Under the circumstances, clemency does seem like the best option to me. However, it does not roll back the guilty verdict, which would(?) be possible if resolved within the judicial arm rather than the executive.

Except it can't be resolved in the judicial arm because the law of Oklahoma explicitly prohibits that from happening.

The explicit prohibition that you are referring to: is it explicit in the law written by the legislature or made explicit by prior case law (i.e., judicial interpretation)? I'm curious because I've heard arguments for and against common law that this seems relevant to, if the latter.

From GavinMcG's (currently top) comment [1] in this thread:

> The statute in question ([0] – see (D)(8)) says the court may not consider the merits or grant relief unless there are facts or legal rationales that could not have been raised earlier. The court isn't empowered to do something just because two parties agree.

[0] https://casetext.com/statute/oklahoma-statutes/title-22-crim...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35780147

Thank you, I missed that.

> where the judicial system seems truly out of control

I don't think this is true at all. The judicial system is following the laws that the legislature has laid out. Unless the laws are unconstitutional (which no one seems to be arguing) then this is actually a case where the judicial system is 100% not out of control. And, in fact, nothing gives them the power to act here, so they aren't acting. All they've done is refuse to step in to a spot that has no place defined for them.

> it makes a clear case that the problem is the system

Yes, but the system that's the problem isn't the judges. It's the law that's been decided upon and never fixed. The judges can't just decide that they aren't going to enforce the law unless someone is arguing that the law itself is invalid, which no one is doing.

It's an unfortunate situation but it's one with a real remedy. The remedy is not "courts ignore legislature," it's "governor grants clemency or pardon."

One possibility I guess could be for the state to put “don’t murder innocent people” in their constitution. It just seems like an odd caveat to need.

In this case the man is guilty in the eyes of the court and there is no mechanism by which they can reevaluate that decision given this new information. The problem is the law does not give them this ability and that the death penalty is a possible outcome. Neither of these are problems the court can fix. The solution here is on the legislature and executive.

Could a religious liberty case be made? I mean, I am not religious, but I’d be surprised if the Christian god would be OK killing a person over a technicality. Oklahoma is a pretty religious place, right? I imagine the execution could be hard to perform if enough people didn’t comply. At least it could be enough of a delay to stall a bit and hopefully work things out…

Wow, so much to unpack here.

> Could a religious liberty case be made?

No.

> I mean, I am not religious, but I’d be surprised if the Christian god would be OK killing a person over a technicality.

Does the defendant have to believe in Christian God? Does he have to state this belief publicly? Does the state recognize only this god or all gods? What is the standard?

> Oklahoma is a pretty religious place, right?

I don't see how this is relevant. The only issue here is the law of the state of Oklahoma. The separation of church and state is not something we can selectively ignore.

> I imagine the execution could be hard to perform if enough people didn’t comply.

Well, only one person has to not comply. That person is the governor, who is tasked with enforcing the law.

> At least it could be enough of a delay to stall a bit and hopefully work things out…

"Hopefully" "work out" how? You mean like the second coming of Christ and he becomes governor and pardons this guy?

'it's "governor grants clemency or pardon."'

And "legislature changes laws"

“Innocence is no defense.” Such a broken system.

The system seems to be working just fine. The justice system interprets law as enacted by the legislature. This is the balance of power. The governor can still issue a pardon to stop the execution because it is the executive's job to enforce the law. The legislature can change the law to avoid this situation in the future. The solution here isn't to give judges absolute power.

Dear God, in what world is the current system "fine". 2-10% of the incarcerated population is innocent. My own minor experiences with the courts has uncovered extreme incompetence on even minor issues, and a system that grants judges damn near the absolute power you mention. There's practically no oversight and the system is designed to hide mistakes and misconduct (judicial review boards).

"The solution here isn't to give judges absolute power."

It's seems all parties are on board - defense, prosecution, etc, so it would not be absolute power.

There is already a remedy here. The executive can simply decide not to go through with the execution. There's no benefit to allowing judges to selectively interpret the law. The price of that precedent is too high. If you think the justice system already makes poor decisions (I agree) then the solution is certainly not to give judges even more power.

"There's not benefit to allowing judges to selectively interpret the law."

I agree, but they already do.

When the entirety of the system has failed and it's down to the executive, that's a problem. We want a system that's fail-safe, not fail-fatal.

The entirety of the system hasn't failed though. The legislature can still change the law and the executive can still refuse to enforce the death penalty. And to top it off the judicial has refused to overstep their bounds.

Yeah... in only one of the many cases. How about the ones that aren't national news?

"[The Unites States Supreme] Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent." -- Antonin Scalia, dissenting on 08-1443 In Re Troy Anthony Davis

Thanks, that was the quote that I was too frustrated to search for.

But some people argue that the trial was not fair. Evidence was withheld and his attorneys were intimidated to resign.

That's also how it works if the County Golf Commissioner finds that he is 'actually' innocent.

Because that's not their job.

You have this wrong. A "habeas court" is a court considering whether a person is being detained illegally. This is a mechanism for obtaining a collateral review of evidence in a criminal case (commonly used in death cases), since a person can't be legally detained or executed if they didn't commit a crime.

In the Scalia quotation, he was using his lawful-evil dissent persona to cast aspersions on a very common review mechanism. This was his much regarded "style," but it doesn't really help people understand the state of play in this situation.

You fall into the trap. Unlike the golf commissioner (if they even regulate golf in OK counties), the habeas court is actually sitting in the center of its constitutive authority when making decisions on actual innocence in capital habeas.

This is clearly correct and it exposes a sort of wink/nudge game that judges and lawyers commonly play. Courts will say "we are constrained by the law," and every practitioner knows that they mean, "among the many laws that could apply to this situation, we have selected one that constrains us to make the decision that we think is appropriate." If you go read the briefs, I'll bet you find that each party made the same kind of argument in e.g. the original habeas petition: defense says law A forces conclusion X, prosecutor says law B forces conclusion Y.

Normally this is a pretty comfortable role for each party and leads to something that looks like justice. The lawyers think they are making really strong arguments and the court gets to shed accountability, which is a judicial aphrodisiac.

The game fell apart here because the attorney general switched sides, ostensibly after contracting an independent review of the conviction, and left the court without any cover for upholding the conviction. So now we have a situation where all parties agree the court should act (and in my recollection of 8th amendment case law, it is actually obligated to act to prevent cruel and unusual punishment), but it will not.

I don't understand why people seem to think that it's in societies benefit as a whole to have a perfect system. A perfect system would be to spend any amount of money so that every person accused of every crime that could not afford a lawyer had enough money to be able to hire the absolutely best legal help instead of whatever help is typically afforded. Or just the same those who help now (of let's say less skill) have less work or more resources so they can mount a better defense.

Unfortunately that is not possible. And yes if you don't have money (for any reason (ie bad luck, wrong family upbringing endless list) you often get the short end of the stick.

Noting also that I am almost certain that nobody making a comment has read much about this case other than small parts of it and assuming that in the end the right thing is not happening here. The fact that the attorney general and the Governor think it should not happen doesn't mean it should not happen (as you don't fully know their thinking or their motivations).

Bottom line: Money does not grow on trees. There are resources and not everyone will get a fair shake (when skill is involved).

I was watching something on TV other night (Dateline or 2020 or like that network) and some family was not happy because a murderer was offered a plea deal. They just did not understand why there would not be a trial they wanted to see the best possible bad outcome for the person who murdered their family member. Sure that is fine but resources unfortunately and money means that prosecutors often (again for the greater good) have to cut deals. So no it's not all about your pain and your situation 'money does not go on trees'. (And the fact that they for other reasons might fight another case doesn't change that ie 'life is not always fair').

Easy for people on the sideline reading to be idealistic about how things should work.

> I don't understand why people seem to think that it's in societies benefit as a whole to have a perfect system.

OK? then it seems pretty obvious the corollary is "don't let the imperfections lead to the state murdering people".

“It can never be perfect” is a reasonable position to take.

“Therefore, we shouldn’t bother to fix the clearly shitty bits” is not.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

Since the governor has given multiple reprieves, can he not grant clemency to avoid the miscarriage of justice? Does the governor not have that power in Oklahoma, as he does in most other states?

"We're going to execute an innocent man, and it is his own fault because his defense failed to successfully impeach the state's only witness, who we now know was either lying or insane."

Well, we don't know that he is innocent. Just that he didn't receive a fair trial.

Read the article, and others. All indications are actual innocence. Literally no evidence links him to the crime.

I'm being pedantic. The trial already happened. We don't know what the outcome would have been if the witness' shortcomings were known to the jury.

You're right that we can't know.

But I think it's fair to say, in hindsight, that someone was sentenced to death entirely based solely on evidence that no reasonable person would consider beyond a doubt.

But, assuming they go ahead and kill him, I'm sure that will be the rationale: we can't be sure he was innocent, and someone has to die.

The governor can decide to not execute him. This just isn't something the courts can remedy.

Sure. I just would have expected the courts to be interested in justice.

The complaint here is that the courts, in this case at least, have embraced bureaucracy and process even when in conflict with justice. Not a great look for a "justice system".

The courts have no mechanism by which they can act. I really don’t understand what they could or should have done differently. They have no choice here.

This of course is predictable and a scenario that Massachusetts, at least, planned for in its law on first degree murder (which at one point was a capital offense). The highest court of appeal there is empowered to reweigh the evidence or, even if the evidence of guilt was adequate, act on the basis of "any other reason that justice may require...." [1] The law avoids the worst result of a high court dodging responsibility for a miscarriage of justice. Doesn't perfect justice (part of the reason there is no death penalty under Massachusetts law) but does require the high court to own the result.

[1] https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleII/Ch...

Only the government has a “monopoly on violence” and this is the same government that too many people want to give more power to…

Is there anything states which oppose the death penalty can do to encourage states with it to change?

Get Barack Obama to publicly speak in favor of the death penalty.

Shouldn't be too hard, he's meted out such a penalty against literal children before.

The titles is a reduced version of the following quote.

> Since the State now agrees that the only witness to allege that Mr. Glossip was involved in this crime cannot be believed, it is unconscionable for the court to attempt to force the State to move forward with his execution.

The second part of the title, after the comma, says the opposite of what your quote says.

The State and the Court are two completely different things. The United States depends on an independent Judicial branch (Court) from the Executive branch (State). And most (all?) of the individual states follow near the same separation of powers.

Do you have a citation for this? The US has three separate, coequal branches. That is indisputable. But, I’ve always considered them all a part of the “state.”

I'm not defending my original title, I can see how it doesn't follow the guidelines.

Specifically on your question in the context of a court case "State" clearly refers to the prosecution and not the court. You can see the judge in this case using the word in that manner in the second image in the article.

The GP's quote is a lawyer's comment on the situation, so it makes sense in context, but not as a substitute for the HN article title.

The GP also posted the item to HN. They said the title is a reduced version of the quote. I was pointing out that it's not an accurate one.

Edit: the title has since been corrected, so my comments no are no longer relevant

I've changed the title in keeping with HN's rule: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

(Submitted title was "State agrees the only witness cannot be believed, court to force execution")

Apologies. I thought the original title wasn't very useful if the reader doesn't know who Glossip is.

it's just surreal that the US, land of the free, home of the brave, by and large tolerates the state just straight up killing people, denying them the most trivial of rights, that of "not being murdered". even aside from the deeply flawed judicial system that leads to so so many people being executed despite not having even committed the claimed crime, it's bizarre they're so far behind almost all of the rest of the western world.

I sort of agree with the overall sentiment of this (I oppose the death penalty for many reasons), but this does seem like a mild exaggeration. Less than 20 people get the death penalty per year in the US, and they are isolated in a few states (mostly Texas)

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in 27 of 50 states. But the most populated states do not have capital punishment as a legal penalty. So it is not true that "by and large" the US tolerates this penalty. The trend is clearly toward abolishing the death penalty.

and then one considers pretty much all other countries, the ONLY thing making it different here, is that while the US is happy to kill its citizens, the other countries are even more happy to have their tax slaves that they prefer to imprison for decades and then try see if they can extract more via taxes. Gotta do ANYTHING to keep the tax slaves paying

Doesn’t the US have a much higher incarceration rate than most… developed countries, at least?

yes, and what can we infer here? the US is more willing to keep criminals that might harm others locked up, contrasting to europe where the holy goal is to collect >50% of peoples entire existence, regardless of the risk to others.

And also, the US has some slight problems with super corrupt individuals in power like the vice president that hid evidence that would free up wrongly convicted individuals, and hillary clinton that used prison labour to build her vacation homes.

the demographics, for many many reasons, are also more criminal in the US

I’m not sure what country you are thinking of specifically. Does it have a much higher violent crime rate than the US?

Edit: actually, thinking of it, I sort of doubt this will be a productive conversation. I gather that your position is that the US criminal system is basically OK-ish, or at least better than most other developed countries. I basically disagree with this, but I don’t think either of us have any chance of convincing each other, and will both just end up annoyed, so what’s the point, right?

i strongly dislike the US system, but some of the things it does is much better than what so called "civilized countries" do

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