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Like a man who survived the gallows not once, not twice, but three times, Richard Glossip walked to the edge of oblivion — only to be pulled back each time by the fraying threads of justice. On Thursday, an Oklahoma judge ordered his release on bond, clearing the way for the 63-year-old former death row inmate to breathe free air for the first time in nearly 30 years as he awaits retrial in the 1997 killing that nearly cost him his life.

Judge Natalie Mai set bond at $500,000, attaching conditions that thread a needle between liberty and accountability: Glossip must wear an electronic monitoring device, remain within Oklahoma's borders, avoid any contact with witnesses in the case, and abstain from drugs and alcohol.

The ruling is the latest seismic development in a case that has rattled the foundations of America's criminal justice system, drawn Hollywood royalty into its orbit, and sparked a global reckoning with the death penalty.

The Case That Refused to Die

Glossip was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1997 murder-for-hire killing of Barry Van Treese, his former boss and the owner of an Oklahoma City motel, in a scheme prosecutors alleged Glossip orchestrated. For more than two decades, the case seemed closed — except it never really was.

Courts in Oklahoma set nine separate execution dates for Glossip. He ate three different last meals. In 2015, he sat in a cell directly adjacent to the execution chamber, minutes from being strapped to a gurney and killed by lethal injection — only for prison officials to discover, in a moment of almost surreal bureaucratic chaos, that one of the lethal drugs delivered for the execution did not match the approved protocol. The wrong drug had arrived. The execution was halted.

That drug mix-up ricocheted far beyond Glossip's cell, triggering a near-seven-year moratorium on executions across Oklahoma — a state long regarded as one of the most aggressive in its use of capital punishment.

Supreme Court Strikes Down Conviction

The case crested again last year when the United States Supreme Court delivered a ruling that struck like a thunderbolt: Glossip's conviction was thrown out. The court found that prosecutors had knowingly allowed a key witness to give false testimony, a violation of Glossip's constitutional right to a fair trial. It was a finding not of a technicality, but of documented prosecutorial misconduct at the highest legal level.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond subsequently announced the state would pursue a retrial on the murder charge — but would not again seek the death penalty.

In her order granting bond, Judge Mai laid bare the weight of the moment. "The court fully expects that the state will rigorously prosecute its case going forward and the defense will provide robust representation for Glossip," she wrote. "The court hopes that a new trial, free of error, will provide all interested parties and the citizens of Oklahoma the closure they deserve."

A Defense Team's Long Road

Glossip's attorney, Donald Knight, released a statement calling the ruling a milestone — but not a finish line.

"Mr. Glossip now has the chance to taste freedom while his defense team continues to pursue justice on his behalf against a system that the United States Supreme Court has found to be guilty of serious misconduct by state prosecutors," Knight said. He added that his client "looks forward to the day when he is exonerated," as Glossip has maintained his innocence throughout his nearly three decades of incarceration.

Celebrity Spotlight and International Eyes

Few criminal cases in modern American history have attracted the constellation of high-profile attention that has orbited Glossip's. Reality television mogul and criminal justice advocate Kim Kardashian publicly championed his cause, amplifying his story to millions. Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon — whose portrayal of death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean in the landmark 1995 film Dead Man Walking made her a cultural symbol of capital punishment resistance — took up Glossip's real-life fight with the same conviction she brought to the screen.

The case was also the subject of the 2017 documentary Killing Richard Glossip, which detailed the maze of alleged prosecutorial failures, unreliable testimony, and near-executions that defined his time on death row.

What began as a local murder case in Oklahoma City has grown into an international litmus test for the American justice system — a question mark hanging over every death warrant ever signed.

What Comes Next

Glossip, who has not been outside a prison since his arrest nearly 30 years ago, will now face the disorienting terrain of conditional freedom — monitored, constrained, but breathing open air for the first time since the late 1990s. His retrial date has not been announced.

For a man who has already stared down execution three times and outlasted the system's attempts to end his life, the road ahead remains uncertain. But for the first time in three decades, it is a road he may walk — if only provisionally — outside of prison walls.