Don Knight

DON KNIGHT is a member of the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project (FDPRC) where he advises defense teams across the country whose clients face the possibility of a death sentence in Federal Court.  He also directly represents defendants charged with death-eligible offenses.  Mr. Knight was part of the defense team that obtained a life-verdict after trial for Rudy Sablan, who had been accused of the murder and evisceration of his cellmate in a federal penitentiary in 1999.  He was Learned Counsel for Samuel Stone, who was charged with the homicide of an inmate in a federal penitentiary in 2003, and for Joseph Cabrera Sablan, who was charged with the murder of a federal prison guard in 2008.  After extensive litigation, both cases were deauthorized and settled with life pleas in 2015.  Currently Mr. Knight acts as lead counsel for Richard Glossip, who was twice sentenced to death in Oklahoma and who faced execution on nine separate occasions and was served three last meals.  On February 25, 2025, in Glossip v. Oklahoma, the United States Supreme Court found that his 2004 conviction was infested with prosecutorial misconduct ordered a new trial. The State of Oklahoma is now attempting to try him a third time but will not seek the death penalty.