Supreme Court could overturn Oklahoma death row inmate's conviction
National News
The Supreme Court on Monday said it will hear an appeal from Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence and averted multiple attempts by the state to execute him.
Glossip was sentenced in a 1997 murder-for-hire of the owner of the motel where he worked.
The case won’t be argued until the fall. Glossip now has the support of the state’s Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, who says Glossip’s life should be spared because he did not get a fair trial.
“Public confidence in the death penalty requires the highest standard of reliability, so it is appropriate that the U.S. Supreme Court will review this case,” Drummond said in a statement Monday. “As Oklahoma’s chief law officer, I will continue fighting to ensure justice is done in this case and every other.”
John Mills, an attorney for Glossip, said his client is innocent. “He has no criminal history, no history of misconduct during his entire time in prison, and has maintained his innocence throughout a quarter century wrongfully on death row. It is time – past time – for his nightmare to be over,” Mills said in a statement.
The Supreme Court blocked the latest effort to execute Glossip in early May.
Despite Drummond’s doubts about the trial, an Oklahoma appeals court upheld Glossip’s conviction, and the state’s pardon and parole board deadlocked in a vote to grant him clemency.
But Drummond also has said he does not believe Glossip is innocent of the murder-for-hire killing of his former boss, Barry Van Treese, in 1997. Another man, Justin Sneed, admitted robbing and killing Van Treese after Glossip promised to pay him $10,000. Sneed received a life sentence in exchange for his testimony and was the key witness against Glossip.
Two separate independent investigations have revealed problems with the prosecution’s case.
Drummond said that Sneed lied on the witness stand about his psychiatric condition and his reason for taking the mood-stabilizing drug lithium and that prosecutors knew Sneed was lying.
Also, evidence was destroyed, Drummond said.
Some Republican state lawmakers who support the death penalty have joined the growing chorus of Glossip supporters who are seeking to overturn his conviction.
Glossip’s case has been to the Supreme Court before. He was given a reprieve in 2015, although the court later ruled 5-4 against him in a case involving the drugs used in lethal executions.
Glossip has been just hours away from being executed three times. His last scheduled execution, in September 2015, was halted just moments before he was to be led to the death chamber when prison officials realized they had received the wrong lethal drug. That mix-up helped prompt a nearly seven-year moratorium on the death penalty in Oklahoma.
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Workers’ Compensation Subrogation of Administrative Fees and Costs
When a worker covered by workers’ compensation makes a claim against a third party, the workers’ compensation insurance retains the right to subrogate against any recovery from that third party for all benefits paid to or on behalf of a claimant injured at work. When subrogating for more than basic medical and indemnity benefits, the Texas workers’ compensation subrogation statute provides that “the net amount recovered by a claimant in a third‑party action shall be used to reimburse the carrier for benefits, including medical benefits that have been paid for the compensable injury.” TX Labor Code § 417.002.
In fact, all 50 states provide for similar subrogation. However, none of them precisely outlines which payments or costs paid by a compensation carrier constitute “compensation” and can be recovered. The result is industry-wide confusion and an ongoing debate and argument with claimants’ attorneys over what can and can’t be included in a carrier’s lien for recovery purposes.
In addition to medical expenses, death benefits, funeral costs and/or indemnity benefits for lost wages and loss of earning capacity resulting from a compensable injury, workers’ compensation insurance carriers also expend considerable dollars for case management costs, medical bill audit fees, rehabilitation benefits, nurse case worker fees, and other similar fees. They also incur other expenses in conjunction with the handling and adjusting of workers’ compensation claims. Workers’ compensation carriers typically assert, of course, that, they are entitled to reimbursement for such expenditures when it recovers its workers’ compensation lien. Injured workers and their attorneys disagree.