Countdown to Wrongful Conviction Day: Friday, October 2, 2105; 19 days. For information: http://www.aidwyc.org/wcd-2015/
"(City Sentinel) Editor’s Note: This week, attorneys Don Knight, Mark Olive and Kathleen Lord,
who are working to establish Richard Glossip’s innocence – released a
lengthy memorandum to reporters worldwide. The memo outlined new
evidence in the case they are making for Glossip’s innocence. They and others fighting to stop Glossip’s execution are asking for more time to continue their investigations. Introducing the memo to reporters via email, the attorneys wrote: “In the early morning hours of January 7, 1997, Justin Sneed, by
himself, beat Barry Van Treese to death with a baseball bat in Room 102
of the Best Budget Inn, a motel in Oklahoma City owned by Mr. Van
Treese. Upon arrest, he first denied any involvement in or knowledge of
the murder. Over the course of a long interrogation by two detectives,
Sneed was pressured to implicate Richard Glossip, the manager of the
hotel, and was fed details which, if he adopted them, would help him. “Sneed finally adopted the detectives’ story and agreed, in
exchange for a life sentence for the murder he alone committed, to
testify that Mr. Glossip was the mastermind of the plot to murder Mr.
Van Treese to steal money from his car. Based upon Sneed’s testimony, Mr. Glossip is scheduled to be executed Wednesday, September 16, at 3:00 p.m. “The prosecutors conceded in argument at trial: ‘the physical
evidence doesn’t directly implicate Mr. Glossip.’ Therefore, the
scheduled execution is based upon Sneed’s testimony and credibility
alone.” Don Knight and leaders of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (OK-CADP) will meet with reporters on Monday, September 14 at 10 a.m. in the 2nd floor Supreme Court Hallway at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City. Here is the summary
Knight and his colleagues provided to the news media on Friday,
September 11. They believe it strengthens the case that “Mr. Sneed lied
to save his own life.” Evidence includes the following:
1.1 The use of interrogation techniques proven to elicit false statements; Richard A. Leo, Ph.D., J.D., is the national, leading expert on
police-induced false confessions and erroneous convictions. … Dr. Leo
evaluated the circumstances of Mr. Sneed’s interrogations and concluded,
based upon decades of social science research, that law enforcement in
this case used the “personal and situational factors associated with,
and believed to cause, false confessions.” For example: “The suggestion that Richard Glossip was involved in the homicide of
Barry Van Treese first came from investigators, not Justin Sneed. The
investigators feed Justin Sneed their theory that Richard Glossip was
the mastermind of this homicide, and they repeatedly tell him that
Richard Glossip was putting the crime on him;” Interrogators “repeatedly tell him that he will be the scapegoat for
the crime if he does not confess, implying that he will receive the
harshest punishment if he does not confess to it; they repeatedly
suggest that Richard Glossip is the one who put him up to it; and they
tell him that he can get this straightened out;” Interrogators “presumed the guilt of Richard Glossip from almost the
start and sought to pressure and persuade Justin Sneed to implicate
Richard Glossip.” “The investigators repeatedly lied to Justin Sneed by telling him
that multiple people or witnesses had implicated him in the murder.” Dr. Leo’s report explains the science behind why techniques such as
these create “the suspect’s perception that he is trapped, there is no
way out, and that his conviction will be inevitable, thus leading to the
perception that he has little choice but to agree to or negotiate the
best available outcome or mitigation of punishment given the subjective
reality of his situation.”
Such tactics “are substantially likely to increase the risk of eliciting false statements, admissions, and or confessions.” Finally, Dr. Leo notes Sneed’s “multiple, inconsistent, and
contradictory accounts of the crime” which is consistent with a guilty
person “falsely implicating an innocent third part as an accomplice.”
1.2 Sneed habitually broke into cars and hotel rooms to support his addiction to methamphetamine The state portrayed Sneed as a hapless dupe who had taken
methamphetamine, but “he didn’t use it that often.” The state asked:
“Why would he need that much money?” Mr. Glossip’s legal team has newly discovered evidence never before
presented that casts serious doubt on this key part of the prosecution’s
case. According to one of Sneed’s drug dealers at the time, Sneed on
his own, habitually broke into peoples’ cars and motel rooms to take
property to support his severe drug addition. (Affidavit provided); .
1.4 A new defense report casts serious doubt on the testimony of the prosecution’s medical examiner. As reported by Phil Cross
at KOKH FOX 25 on September 10, 2015, jurors in the second trial report
being misled by the testimony of medical examiner Choi as to the length
of time that Mr. Van Treese survived after Sneed’s attack. The new
report is consistent with Mr. Sneed’s statements that he waited to leave
until he saw Mr. Van Treese take his last breath. At the press conference [on Monday, September 14], Mr. Knight will
talk about what this information means to the case against Mr. Glossip,
and will provide further details uncovered in this investigation,
including new expert reports and a new key witness who will discuss
statements made by Mr. Sneed after Mr. Sneed put Mr. Glossip on death
row."
http://city-sentinel.com/2015/09/new-evidence-in-glossip-case-will-be-presented-monday-september-14-by-legal-defense-team-member-don-knight/