Monday, September 28, 2015

Bulletin: Richard Glossip; Oklahoma; Significant development: Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals denies his execution challenges. "Two judges out of the five dissented in the decision, with Judge Carlene Smith saying she would have sent the case back to Oklahoma County for a hearing and issued a 60-day stay of execution because previous attorneys may have been unable to discover the new evidence. The other, Judge Arlene Johnson, called Glossip's case "deeply flawed" and said he did not receive a fair trial." "Tulsa World."


Countdown to Wrongful Conviction Day:  Friday, October 2,  2105; 4 days. For information: http://www.aidwyc.org/wcd-2015/

"The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday denied Richard Glossip's challenges to his execution, about 48 hours before he is scheduled to die by lethal injection. Glossip, 52, was sentenced to death after a jury convicted him of murder for remuneration in the January 1997 beating death of his boss, Barry Van Treese, who owned the Best Budget Inn in Oklahoma City. Glossip was the resident manager, while Justin Sneed, who confessed to beating Van Treese with a baseball bat inside one of the motel rooms, lived at the property in exchange for maintenance work. Prosecutors alleged throughout trial that Sneed was dependent on Glossip and that Glossip offered him thousands of dollars to carry out the killing because Glossip feared being terminated, as Van Treese discovered about $6,000 was missing from the books. In the majority ruling by Judge David Lewis on Monday, the Court of Criminal Appeals wrote that Glossip "merely wants more time so he can develop evidence" similar to that his attorneys submitted in advance of his previously set Sept. 16 execution date. "We find, therefore, an evidentiary hearing, discovery or further stay of execution is not warranted in this case," the majority opinion states. Two judges out of the five dissented in the decision, with Judge Carlene Smith saying she would have sent the case back to Oklahoma County for a hearing and issued a 60-day stay of execution because previous attorneys may have been unable to discover the new evidence. The other, Judge Arlene Johnson, called Glossip's case "deeply flawed" and said he did not receive a fair trial. Glossip's legal team also challenged the two-week stay of execution granted by the court Sept. 16, saying state law dictates a new date must be 30 or 60 days after a stay is dissolved. The court denied the request to change the Wednesday execution date, saying the the court issued Glossip a temporary stay and dissolved it in the same order by selecting a new date. Smith and Johnson also dissented in that ruling. "Nothing in the statute prohibits this court from rescheduling the execution date at any time it deems necessary and prudent," the majority decision states."
 http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/state/oklahoma-court-of-criminal-appeals-denies-richard-glossip-s-execution/article_aded3585-9f42-53e1-bd6b-dea3364595b2.html