Friday, August 12, 2022

Richard Glossip: Oklahoma: (False confession case/ missing or destroyed evidence/lack of physical proof)...Major Development: As the execution date approaches, a handwritten letter has come to light casting doubt on the critical testimony of a self-confessed murderer who provided the only implicating evidence at his trial, The Guardian (Chief Reporter Ed Pilkington) reports..."Kevin McDugle, a Republican representative in the Oklahoma legislature who has led the call for a pause in the approaching execution, said the letter amounted to compelling new evidence. It strongly suggested, he said, that "Sneed wanted to recant his statement implicating Richard Glossip, and his attorney shut him down".


PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The letter was written in 2007 by Justin Sneed, a motel handyman who by his own admittance bludgeoned to death Barry Van Treese, the owner of a Best Budget, a decade earlier. Sneed's testimony that Glossip, the manager of the motel, had put him up to the murder with a promise of $10,000 was central to the state's case – with no other forensic or corroborating evidence to back it up. As a result, Glossip was sentenced to death in his second capital trial in 2004. By contrast Sneed, the killer, was given life without parole. In the handwritten letter, Sneed writes to his own defense lawyer three years later expressing deep anxiety about the case and his role in it. "There are a lot of things right now that are eating at me," he begins. "Somethings I need to clean up," he goes on. Then he writes: "I think you know were (sic) I'm going it was a mistake reliving this." The letter was uncovered recently by Reed Smith, an international law firm that was asked by Oklahoma state lawmakers to carry out an independent investigation into the Glossip case. In recent days concern that the state might be about to kill an innocent man has reached fever pitch, with 61 legislators – most of them pro-death penalty Republicans – pleading with the state's attorney general to hold a special hearing to consider the new evidence."

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STORY:  Newly uncovered letter casts doubt over sole testimony in Oklahoma death row,"  by  Chief  Reporter Ed Pilkington,  published by The Guardian,  on August 12, 2022. (Ed Pilkington is chief reporter for Guardian US. He is the author of Beyond the Mother Country.)

SUB-HEADING: Self-confessed murderer Justin Sneed gave the only evidence in Richard Glossip's case, later writing 'somethings I need to clean up.'

GIST: A handwritten letter has come to light casting doubt on the critical testimony of a self-confessed murderer who provided the only implicating evidence at the trial of Richard Glossip, a death row inmate in Oklahoma who is to be executed in six weeks' time.


The letter was written in 2007 by Justin Sneed, a motel handyman who by his own admittance bludgeoned to death Barry Van Treese, the owner of a Best Budget, a decade earlier. Sneed's testimony that Glossip, the manager of the motel, had put him up to the murder with a promise of $10,000 was central to the state's case – with no other forensic or corroborating evidence to back it up.


As a result, Glossip was sentenced to death in his second capital trial in 2004. By contrast Sneed, the killer, was given life without parole.


In the handwritten letter, Sneed writes to his own defense lawyer three years later expressing deep anxiety about the case and his role in it. "There are a lot of things right now that are eating at me," he begins.

"Somethings I need to clean up," he goes on. Then he writes: "I think you know were (sic) I'm going it was a mistake reliving this."


The letter was uncovered recently by Reed Smith, an international law firm that was asked by Oklahoma state lawmakers to carry out an independent investigation into the Glossip case. In recent days concern that the state might be about to kill an innocent man has reached fever pitch, with 61 legislators – most of them pro-death penalty Republicans – pleading with the state's attorney general to hold a special hearing to consider the new evidence.


In its 343-page report, released in June, the law firm revealed that prosecutors had intentionally destroyed crucial evidence before trial in a gross violation of due process. The review concluded that "no reasonable juror hearing the complete record would have convicted Richard Glossip of first-degree murder".


Sneed's newly uncovered letter, contained in a supplemental report released by Reed Smith on Thursday, raises further disturbing questions. What precisely was "eating at" him, and what did he want to "clean up"? Most importantly, what did he mean by "it was a mistake"?


Yet Gina Walker, Sneed's lawyer from the Oklahoma county public defender's office, to whom he wrote the letter, did not raise any of these questions with him. Instead Walker, who died in 2020, effectively closed down the conversation.


"I can tell by the tone of your letter that some things are bothering you," she wrote back to Sneed in August 2007. "I know that it was very hard for you to testify at the second trial."

She went on to accuse Glossip's defense lawyers of trying to talk Sneed out of testifying, saying that went "totally against your best interests to the benefit of their client. Had you refused [to testify], you would most likely be on death row right now."


She added: "I hope [Glossip] has not or his lawyers have not tried to make you feel responsible for the outcome of his case".


Kevin McDugle, a Republican representative in the Oklahoma legislature who has led the call for a pause in the approaching execution, said the letter amounted to compelling new evidence. It strongly suggested, he said, that "Sneed wanted to recant his statement implicating Richard Glossip, and his attorney shut him down".


The entire story can be read at:


PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic"  section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com.  Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;


SEE BREAKDOWN OF  SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG,  AT THE LINK BELOW:  HL:



FINAL WORD:  (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases):  "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions.   They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project
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