Editor's note: This story was updated on 1:21 p.m. on March 3 to correct misleading information in Thomas Reese's quote.
An OU law student, joined by Oklahoma City University law students, created a petition to remove adjunct professor Connie Smothermon following the U.S. Supreme Court’s review of the Richard Glossip case.
The 5-3 Supreme Court ruling granted Glossip a new trial after nearly three decades on death row. The ruling reads that Connie Smotherman, former Oklahoma County district attorney and head case prosecutor, committed prosecutorial misconduct because she knew her star witness, Justin Sneed, lied under oath.
OU law student Travis Handler, who posted the petition Thursday morning, said he has been concerned about Connie Smotherman’s history since he began law school. Handler said he doesn’t intend to “malign” the College of Law because it helps the community, but its professors need to be held accountable.
Associate Professor of Legal Practice Emeritus Connie Smothermon
“The most important part (of the) rule of law is that nobody's above the law and nobody's above accountability,” Handler said. “And I hope that the law school adheres to that.”
Connie Smothermon has been an adjunct professor at the OU College of Law since 2004 and teaches at the Oklahoma City University School of Law. She also served as the head of the Domestic Violence Prosecution Unit in the Oklahoma County district attorney’s office.
“Pretty much everybody across the political spectrum or across the pro-prosecution, pro-defense at the law school that I spoke with were in agreement that this is an individual that should not be teaching here,” Handler said.
According to the ruling, the prosecution knew Sneed had lied under oath about receiving a prescription for bipolar disorder. If Sneed was capable of lying under oath about that, the rest of his testimony is questionable, the majority opinion states.
In 1998, Glossip was convicted for his role in the murder of Barry Van Treese. Van Treese owned a Best Budget Inn in Oklahoma City, where Glossip lived and worked as a manager. Sneed, a hotel housekeeper who worked to pay for his stay there, beat Van Treese to death in a hotel room in 1997. Sneed testified in court that Glossip had promised to pay him $10,000 to commit the murder.
In return for this testimony, Sneed received life without parole instead of the death penalty. Glossip was convicted of first-degree murder and placed on death row while maintaining his innocence.
Glossip has eaten three last meals and bypassed nine execution dates due to multiple delays and appeals.
In 2023, Glossip petitioned the state Pardon and Parole Board for clemency. Connie Smothermon’s husband, Richard Smothermon, was on the board but recused himself from the case. A majority vote was required to approve Glossip’s petition, but without Richard Smotherman’s vote, the board was locked at 2-2, resulting in Glossip not being granted clemency.
That year, the state recovered documents showing Sneed had been prescribed lithium by a jail psychiatrist to treat bipolar disorder, which contradicted his testimony that he had never seen a psychiatrist and the prescription was accidental.
Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor concluded that Glossip was entitled to a new trial because the documents showed Sneed’s testimony wasn’t credible but was the “only direct evidence” for Glossip’s conviction.
According to the ruling, Connie Smothermon’s case notes showed she was aware of Sneed’s lithium prescription and knew he lied under oath.
According to Handler, this violation was compelling enough that the Supreme Court did not even consider other violations committed by the prosecution.
“I've got no issue with that, but it goes to show you that their opinion doesn't really even scratch the surface of just how deeply this ran and how well orchestrated it was on the part of the prosecution,” Handler said.
Reed Smith, an international law firm, published an independent report in 2022 that found that 10 items of evidence from the murder scene were destroyed by the state district attorney’s office, specifically naming Connie Smothermon, before Glossip’s trial, violating an agreement to safeguard evidence in capital murder cases. The report concluded that no “reasonable juror” would have convicted Glossip of murder.
Following the Reed Smith report, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond got involved in the case and helped propel it to the Supreme Court. According to a press release from the attorney general’s office following the ruling, the Supreme Court affirmed Drummond’s conclusion that the prosecution knew about the prescription and that Sneed’s testimony was dishonest.
“I am grateful the justices understood the gravity of the situation,” Drummond said in the release. “I have long maintained that I do not believe Mr. Glossip is innocent, but it is now an undeniable fact that he did not receive a fair trial.”
Drummond said he will not pursue action against the prosecution in a press conference on Tuesday.
Neither Connie nor Richard Smotherman have responded to OU Daily’s requests to comment.
In a statement, OU Marketing and Communications wrote the university is aware of the court’s ruling and would not comment on personnel matters.
In a text message to OU Daily, Handler clarified the petition only calls for the removal of Connie Smothermon because the controversy with Richard Smothermon is secondary.
“(Connie and Richard Smothermon) have treated this as not a big of a deal as it should have been treated,” Handler said. “And I think, frankly, neither Smothermon should be teaching here, which is a shame because they're both very well experienced prosecutors.”
Thomas Reese, a public defender based in Tulsa, graduated from the OU College of Law in 2016. Reese said Connie Smothermon had years to correct her wrongdoing in the case but hasn’t. Sneed’s testimony was the only direct evidence used to condemn Glossip, and Connie Smotherman knew he was lying, he said.
“Connie Smotherman knowingly put a (possibly) innocent man on death row,” Reese said.
Connie Smothermon was trusted by the university, Reese said, and was built up as a role model to law students.
“To have the United States Supreme Court step in and vacate a state court death sentence, especially for prosecutorial misconduct, is almost unheard of,” Reese said.
Reese is working on a letter urging the university to fire Connie Smothermon, which he plans to hand deliver to College of Law Dean Anna Carpenter on Wednesday. He is gathering alums’ signatures and will send a copy to OU President Joseph Harroz Jr.
An OU law student, who wished to remain anonymous, said students in the College of Law have been aware of Connie and Richard Smothermon’s history with the Glossip case, and it’s the “elephant in the room.”
“There's rumblings of students not being okay with it, not wanting our tuition money to be spent on her salary,” the law student said. “If it goes on any further, I will be disappointed, because she is not the best of us, and that's not how we do things."
The student said they purposely avoided enrolling in any of Connie or Richard Smothermon’s classes because of Smothermon’s history. The law student signed the petition calling for Connie Smothermon’s removal.
Handler said Connie Smothermon is a “fine” professor who is knowledgeable and passionate. If he hadn’t found out, he never would have guessed she’d be capable of misconduct.
Handler said he will share the petition with Carpenter in a few days and hopes she’ll be open to it. Handler said he doesn’t blame the dean because she wasn’t at OU when Connie Smothermon was hired.
“People have known about this for a while, and efforts were not really made to remove Connie,” Handler said. “So the ball, the onus, is really on the administration now to respond appropriately.”
This story was edited by Peggy Dodd, Anusha Fathepure and Ana Barboza. Sophie Hemker copy edited this story.
