STORY: "Oklahoma officials reveal new evidence in murder case of death row inmate set to die last week," by Reporter Audrey Conklin, published by Fox News on September 26, 2022.
SUB-HEADING: Richard Glossip's execution date was pushed back for the fourth time in August;
GIST: "Richard Glossip was set to die last week in Oklahoma, but his execution was pushed back – for the fourth time – last month.
Glossip's lawyers have filed a clemency petition with support from 62 Oklahoma state representatives for a new evidentiary hearing in his murder case and say they have new evidence for the court of appeals to consider while they review the petition.
"If the state wants to dispute any of this, we'd welcome that. We'd welcome the hearing. We're not asking anyone to let Richard Glossip go. We're just saying, give us that chance. Give us that hearing," Don Knight, Glossip's attorney, said during a Sept. 22 press conference.
Glossip, 59, was convicted in the 1997 murder-for-hire of his boss, and has spent 25 years in prison but still maintains his innocence. His execution had been delayed three times previously, and his most recent death date, which had been scheduled for Thursday, was pushed back until January.
Knight is pointing to evidence uncovered in an independent investigation by the Reed Smith law firm released on Tuesday showing what Glossip's legal team says are prosecutors' alleged attempts to feed information to another man involved in the case, Justin Sneed, that ultimately kept him from becoming a primary suspect.
The petition states that Glossip "had no prior criminal record and has been a model prisoner for over 25 years while he has maintained his innocence," and that the death row inmate is currently facing his fourth execution date while Sneed, whom Glossip's attorneys allege is the "real killer… is serving a life sentence for the same crime."
Glossip was sentenced to death in the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese. Prosecutors allege that Glossip killed Van Treese, the owner of a motel where Glossip worked as a manager, by convincing Sneed, then a 19-year-old maintenance worker, to execute his killing.
Sneed is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to beating Van Treese to death with a baseball bat in a room at the Oklahoma City motel. Sneed testified that he killed Van Treese, but only after Glossip promised to pay him $10,000 to commit the crime.
Reed Smith's most recent report suggests that Sneed intended to recant at one point. Evidence from the law firm includes a handwritten note in which Sneed asks his attorney, "Do I have the choice of recanting at anytime during my life?"
Glossip's attorneys argue that public defenders veered Sneed away from recanting and hid evidence that may have contributed to a different ruling for Glossip decades ago.
"The truth is, in this case… it becomes ever more apparent with each passing day, that not only did the prosecution destroy evidence – they manufactured evidence," Knight said Thursday. "They changed people's testimony, they broke the rules, all to try and get a conviction against Rich Glossip on a death penalty case that should've never been brought at all."
He continued: "Rich Glossip is a nobody. He's not some powerful person. He's just like all the rest of us. This is what the government can do when they're allowed to run amok. To do whatever they want in a case when the lawyers aren't good, when the lawyers hide evidence, when the government runs an incomplete investigation.”
Oklahoma State Rep. Justin Humphrey, R-Lane – one of the many lawmakers advocating for a new hearing – said Thursday that their efforts are "not about the DA's office."
"This is about process," the state representative said. "
The entire story can be read at:
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Read the excellent September 23, 2022 analysis of alleged prosecutorial misconduct published by Intercept Reporters Liliana Segura and Jordan Smith, two of the finest observers of America's broken criminal justice system, at the link below. (This is a portion of a lengthy piece well worth reading in its entirety. HL):
GIST: "Perhaps one of the most stunning new revelations is that the prosecutors who retried Glossip in 2004 were aware that Sneed had considered recanting — and took extraordinary steps to keep that from happening. “In his August 25, 2022 interview, Sneed confirmed that he met with representatives of the District Attorney’s Office along with his attorney, Gina Walker, before Glossip’s retrial where his plea agreement and his not wanting to testify were discussed,” the report says. Notes found in the prosecutors’ file document a series of meetings with Assistant District Attorney Connie Smothermon, Sneed, and Walker regarding Sneed’s reluctance to testify — information that, by law, should have been turned over to the defense. Smothermon’s trial partner Gary Ackley told Reed Smith he didn’t know anything about this, and that it was cause for concern. “Any prosecutor would be concerned about any cooperating witness in any big case regarding the uncertainty of the waffling back and forth and the disingenuous bad faith nature of such actions,” Ackley said. Not only was this information never disclosed to the defense, Smothermon also apparently worked with Sneed’s attorney as Glossip’s second trial was underway to keep Sneed in line. In a May 2004 memo to Walker, Smothermon laid out six detailed questions for Sneed based on the testimony already delivered by other witnesses at the retrial. The apparent goal was to try to square Sneed’s testimony with what others had said: a maneuver that would violate rules designed to insulate witness testimony from being contaminated by outside information or from the testimony of another witness. The most egregious example involves testimony from Dr. Chai Choi, the medical examiner who conducted Van Treese’s autopsy. At the retrial, Choi testified that Van Treese had puncture wounds, “a stabbing-type injury,” to his chest. Although there was a knife found at the scene, Sneed had previously said that he did not use the knife — an inconsistency that Smothermon sought to fix before Sneed took the stand. “Our biggest problem is still the knife,” Smothermon wrote in the memo to Walker. “Justin tells the police that the knife fell out of his pocket and that he didn’t stab the victim with it.” But when Sneed took the stand at the retrial, he testified for the first time that he had in fact stabbed Van Treese. “This reversal of his statement given to police does not appear to be a coincidence,” Reed Smith wrote. “Rather, it appears to be manufactured in response to ADA [Smothermon’s] communication during trial to Sneed’s attorney explicitly about what had been testified to by other witnesses about the knife.” Ackley told Reed Smith that the change in Sneed’s testimony was “night and day,” and that if it was prompted by Smothermon’s memo, it would be a problem."
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resurce. 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:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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;
