Don Knight, attorney for death row inmate Richard Glossip, says new evidence in the case should be enough for a new trial.
An Oklahoma lawmaker and the defense attorney for death row inmate Richard Glossip called for a new trial on the day he was scheduled to be put to death.
Richard Glossip was scheduled to be executed Thursday before Gov. Kevin Stitt issued a 60-day stay of execution last month. But Rep. Justin Humphrey, R-Lane, and Glossip’s defense attorney Don Knight called for a new trial and investigations based on new evidence they announced in a Thursday press conference.
“I am a strong proponent of the death penalty but we should always make sure that we are 100% sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have the right person,” Humphrey said.
Glossip was convicted twice of 1st-degree murder in a 1997 murder-for-hire plot that accused him of hiring Justin Sneed to kill his boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese.
Sneed admitted to killing Van Treese and told investigators it was under Glossip's direction. Sneed received a sentence of life imprisonment and is a key witness against Glossip.
But Glossip’s case gained attention before an ad hoc committee comprised of 34 Oklahoma state lawmakers, including 28 Republicans, called for an independent review conducted by Houston-based law firm Reed Smith. State Rep. Kevin McDugle led the committee and said at a previous press conference he would fight to end the death penalty in Oklahoma if Glossip is executed.
Reed Smith released a 3rd supplement to the investigation this week — which Knight said led attorneys to file a new petition for post-conviction relief based on 2 key findings.
Knight said the 1st finding was that Sneed “apparently, all along wanted to recant his testimony.”
Sneed asked his attorney in a 2003 letter if he would have the option to recant his testimony. A 2007 letter Sneed wrote his attorney’s office implying he wanted to recant his testimony and that he was willing to contact Glossip’s attorneys to do so.
Sneed’s daughter wrote a 2014 letter stating her father wanted to recant his testimony and believed it would exonerate Glossip. Knight said the letter from Sneed’s daughter confirms he felt bad about his testimony.
Knight said the 2nd key finding was evidence that the lead district attorney on the case fed information to Sneed and had his testimony changed in the middle of the trial.
He said a memo written in the middle of the trial states some of Sneed’s testimony needed to be “cleaned up” because some of it didn’t align with testimony from the medical examiner.
“This is what the government can do when they’re allowed to run amok,” Knight said.
“We need to call for a new trial,” Humphrey said. “I think we need to investigate the district attorney’s office. It appears they have not only destroyed evidence, but they created evidence.”
62 Oklahoma state legislators, including 46 Republicans, signed a letter requesting an evidentiary hearing based on the committee investigation results.
Glossip's initial execution in 2015 was nearly conducted before then-Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin issued a stay and a moratorium on executions.
Oklahoma ended the nearly 7-year moratorium on executions last October, when John Marion Grant convulsed nearly 2 dozen times and vomited on himself before he died by lethal injection, according to witnesses.
Attorneys for several Oklahoma death row inmates challenged Oklahoma’s 3-drug cocktail used in executions, with the U.S. Supreme court ruling the state could move forward with executions.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals set 25 execution dates in 5 phases through December 2024.
Source: McAlester News-Capital, Staff, September 23, 2022
Uncovered evidence in Oklahoma death row case prompts calls for new hearing
Attorneys for an Oklahoma death row inmate whose halted execution in 2015 led to a state moratorium on the death penalty requested a new hearing Thursday, alleging that prosecutors had failed to disclose key evidence that could have resulted in a different outcome at his trial or in his petition for a new one.
A report initiated at the request of Oklahoma state legislators in the capital murder case against Richard Glossip contends that the state's primary witness, Justin Sneed, confirmed to investigators in interviews this summer that he has had discussions with multiple family members about "recanting" his testimony.
In addition, the report said, investigators found that the district attorney's case file included documentation describing how the state provided Sneed information "so he could conform his testimony to match the evidence" from other witnesses.
Glossip, a motel manager in Oklahoma City, was convicted in the 1997 killing of his boss, Barry Van Treese. Sneed, a motel handyman, admitted at trial that he killed Van Treese, but said that it was at Glossip's direction and that he had been promised $10,000. In exchange for testifying against Glossip, Sneed received a life sentence while Glossip was given the death penalty.
Prosecutors alleged Glossip orchestrated the plot because he was embezzling from the motel and feared being fired. Glossip, now 59, has long maintained his innocence.
"This newly obtained evidence establishes not only a pattern of Sneed discussing 'recanting' to individuals he trusts at various times spanning a period of over a decade, but also conduct by the State before and during Glossip's retrial that reveal its concerns over Sneed's reliability and credibility," according to the report, which was prepared by the Pittsburgh-based law firm Reed Smith LLP. The firm released an initial report in June.
As a result of the latest report, Glossip's lawyers said Thursday they filed a so-called Brady motion, intended to compel prosecutors to turn over any evidence they may have that could help the defense. Failure to do so could result in a conviction being reversed.
Lawyers are seeking the new evidentiary hearing from the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, claiming that prosecutors in the Oklahoma County District Attorney's Office also destroyed evidence.
"Rich Glossip is a nobody. He's not some powerful person. He's just like all the rest of us," Don Knight, an attorney for Glossip, said at a news conference. "This is what the government can do when they're allowed to run amok."
Most recently, in a high-profile case against Adnan Syed, whose arrest and conviction in the 1999 murder of a former high school girlfriend was chronicled in the hit podcast "Serial," prosecutors in Baltimore cited Brady violations made by prosecutors at his trial among the reasons he deserved to be freed. A judge on Monday found the evidence compelling enough to vacate Syed's murder conviction.
Glossip was set to be executed Thursday, but in August was granted a 60-day reprieve by Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, while an appeals court reviews his case based on the report's initial findings. A clemency hearing is scheduled for Nov. 9.
A review of the case against Glossip has received bipartisan support in Oklahoma.
In August, more than 5 dozen Democratic and Republican state lawmakers signed a letter urging state Attorney General John O'Connor, a Republican, to agree to an evidentiary hearing.
O'Connor responded that it is up to the courts, but reiterated that "multiple courts have reviewed this evidence and determined that the jury that convicted Glossip and sentenced him to death did so in full accordance with the law." Glossip's original conviction was overturned on appeal, but a second jury found him guilty in 2004.
O'Connor's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday about the investigatory report's findings. In a statement provided to NBC affiliate KFOR in Oklahoma City, O'Connor said that he believes Sneed used the word "recant" in reference to "his hope to negotiate a shorter prison term in exchange for his testimony at Glossip's second trial — but that never happened."
Reed Smith investigators have released other information discovered in the case in recent months, including a letter written by Sneed in 2007 to his lawyer in which he says he has "somethings I need to clean up" and "it was a mistake reliving this."
O'Connor said he remains unconvinced.
"Glossip and those who advocate on his behalf are largely unrestrained in terms of what they can present to the public," he said in his statement. "Each time they promise new evidence of innocence but fail to present new evidence."
Glossip has escaped the death chamber multiple times as he appealed his case, including in September 2015, when then-Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican, stayed his execution at the last minute after prison officials tried to go forward with the wrong lethal injection drugs.
The stunning admission was among a wave of botched and bungled executions in Oklahoma in 2014 and 2015, prompting a statewide moratorium on capital punishment that lasted until October 2021.
In June, O'Connor asked the state's highest appeals court to set execution dates for 25 death row inmates, including Glossip. The next one is scheduled for Oct. 20.
Glossip's case won support from notable names such as actress Susan Sarandon, Pope Francis and Barry Switzer, the popular former football coach at the University of Oklahoma.
State Rep. Kevin McDugle, a Republican, has said that he is so disturbed by the circumstances surrounding Glossip's case that executing him would change his mind on capital punishment.
"If we put Richard Glossip to death, I will fight in this state to abolish the death penalty, simply because the process is not pure," McDugle told reporters in June.
Van Treese's family could not be reached for comment Thursday. His widow, Donna Van Treese, previously told KFOR that she was ready to see Glossip put to death.
"Would I wish a cruel death on anyone? No," she said. "I'm hoping that it is quick."
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Source: Yahoo News, Staff, September 23, 2022
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
