The Angry Ghosts of Tulsa
A reaction to “The Death Penalty Case That Went Too Far”
The angry ghosts of Tulsa, 100 years gone by,
Are rage that preys on innocence,
And brutality devouring lies.
Those feral beasts left their legacy of dust.
And their heirs? How can they so quickly trust
The stories of their murderous “penitents”?
Beyond any reasonable doubt: unjust.
© 2022, Tom Tordillo
“It is a scary thing that these people don’t mind killing me knowing that I am innocent…”
Lara Bazelon, “The Death Penalty Case that Went Too Far” (NY Intelligencer)
John Grisham published The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town in 2008. The nonfiction account tells how Ron Williamson, a mostly pitiable failed baseball player was convicted, sentenced to death, and ultimately exonerated for a horrific crime.
Oklahomans should have been shocked. Instead, it seems many have doubled down on the same prejudice that nearly got Williamson executed.
The case of Richard Glossip should have been relatively straightforward. Evidence linked a man named Sneed to the brutal murderer of a hotel manager. Sneed claimed that he was set up to do it by Glossip, in exchange for receiving a life sentence instead of the death penalty himself. Glossip was offered a life sentence as well, but refused to accept it because he claimed he was innocent. He lost at trial and was sentenced to death, based on Sneed’s testimony and nothing else.
That means Oklahomans trusted a convicted murderer’s story “beyond any reasonable doubt.”
Most people think that a convicted murderer in such a situation might have an incentive to lie, as in, “that other guy did it, not me!” Most people would see that sort of claim as at least somewhat problematic, and maybe feel a shred of doubtr. But not Oklahomans.
Either Oklahomans will believe in the absolute honesty of their murderers — OR they just wanted to see Glossip die. Maybe the juries didn’t even care about whether he was guilty or innocent.
Similar things have happened before in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma’s bloody past goes back further than its own statehood.
Start with the Indian Removal Act of 1830 — Andrew Jackson (see his face on a $20 bill?) — ordering thousands of Native tribes to be forcibly relocated to Oklahoma from Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Anyone own a golf course in Florida that’s worth a hefty chunk of money? How many billionaires today own land that was taken from Natives. Of course they don’t want anyone looking at that history with a critical eye.
[Edit/Insertion: Oklahoma has struggled with this bloody legacy over the centuries, with wretched flare ups, but also, with a gradual effort to instill justice. An outrageous breach does not mean those efforts were in vain. But it does mean more effort remains.]
In 1921, the Tulsa Race Massacre led to an attack on the Greenwood district of Tulsa. One woman accused one Black man of inappropriate advances in an elevator, and suddenly, the mob erupted in fury in an incident unknown to most Americans until 2019, when HBO released two different stories that both presented visualizations of the incident.
- Watchmen interrogated what remains when ‘vigilantes’ get away with brutalizing others. They grow stronger. They seek unlimited power.
- Lovecraft Country interrogated horror as lived within a family’s legacy, blending flavors of courage, sacrifice, love, nightmare, and unreality.
People who perpetrate atrocities learn from others who did so before us. Col. Custer’s Washita Massacre of the Cheyenne in 1868, the murders of the Osage heirs to Oklahoma’s oil fortune in the 1910s through 1930s…imagine all those Oklahoma farmers during the Great Depression, all-too-aware that if they defied the armed men working for the banks, they might face the same fate as any Black family, Native family, or anyone else who came before them.
My words are here are meant for the heirs who suffer through Dust Bowls, and yet they still build a community. They sift through rubble. They put aside rage, or at least, put it somewhere so as to attend to the task of the day. They rebuild ties of innocence and trust, and in so doing, they may exorcise the ghosts of Tulsa.
Perhaps there are enough such people in Oklahoma today. They have their work cut out for them.
EDIT/ADDENDUM
When I read Bazelon’s story about Glossip on Monday, my first response was anger. How can any jury fall for so transparent a prejudice?
But why do I choose to be angry about this? What can my anger possibly do that is constructive, useful? My angry response is a choice. The words I write are my choice.
My project here — and this is still just an experiment — is to practice finding words that do not merely regurgitate harsh judgments. The world is already too full of them. My wit is no greater so many others expressing so many judgments so much better than I can. I cannot enrich this world that way.
But words matter. Words change. Words touch. Words connect, unite, and posit a legacy deeper and richer than dust. Words link us to joy that endures beyond chemical fluctations — authentic durable joy that acknowledges error, but pushes on, remedies where we can, but respects disagreement and humanity.
The man I seek to be loves Oklahomans with his words. So…I may now look on my fury with a smile and a little nod: I still have much work to do to become that man.
As I work on myself, I’ll addend my post thus: in 1921, men who looked very much like Richard Glossip took up arms to kill men who look like Judge David B. Lewis of today’s Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Photo: Erin McGregor, Legislative Service Bureau Photography (this photo is probably public domain given the origin and purpose, but if Oklahoma asks me to take it down, I’ll do so)
The Oklahoma of 1921 is dead, buried, gone. The Oklahoma of 2022 has its work cut out for it. But as they work through this, it’s worth looking at the words of what Judge Lewis had to say about the Glossip case in 2007:
We can honestly say that the jury’s verdict was not born under the influence of passion, prejudice or any other arbitrary factor, and the evidence supported the jury’s findings of the aggravating circumstances. See 21 O.S.2001, § 701.13. Glossip’s convictions and his sentences should be affirmed.
As a factual matter, it’s hard for me to see how a jury would determine that the fact that Glossip had some money after he started selling his possessions (to pay for a lawyer) corroborates the testimony that resulted in a conviction. It’s hard for me to see how a jury could be so convinced because Glossip had $1200 in cash on him.
It’s even harder for me to see this as ‘evidence’:
The condition of the motel, at the time of Van Treese’s death, was deplorable. Only half of the rooms were habitable. The entire motel was absolutely filthy. Glossip was the person responsible for the day to day operations 153*153 of the motel. He knew he would be blamed for the motel’s condition.
The better argument is not that this evidence proves he was guilty of murder, but that he might have taken some money from the hotel owner once that owner was dead.
Glossip argues that all of this evidence merely proves, at best, that he was an accessory after the fact. Despite this claim, a defendant’s actions after a crime can prove him guilty of the offense.
A jury decided otherwise. Judge Lewis may or may not agree with the jury, but his duty as a judge is not to impose his own will upon them, but to apply the law as he sees it. (Another judge also took a look at this case, and also got promoted to a different Supreme Court — here’s a ruling signed off on by Associate US Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch, also finding that the jury might find guilt ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’…)
I stand by my basic premise: the work is to overcome rage and brutality, because that sort of rage and brutality swallows up a Glossip, a Ron Williamson, or the victims of Tulsa 1921 can, unless curtailed, create new malice and mischief.
But it is worthy to read the judgments and try to understand them before casting judgments of our own. Oklahoma is trying to do just that.
