GIST: "The U.S. Supreme Court is set to decide whether to hear Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip’s appeal after the state appeals court denied a new evidentiary hearing.
Attorneys for Glossip filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in January to ask the country’s highest court for relief citing new evidence they claim brings two questions of Brady v. Maryland violations.
Glossip, 59, is scheduled to be executed May 18, 2023, for his convictions in the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese. Glossip was convicted twice of first-degree murder in the murder-for-hire plot that accused him of hiring Justin Sneed to kill Van Treese.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals twice denied two separate motions requesting evidentiary hearings to allow a full review of new evidence — including several affidavits from witnesses that support the claim that Sneed murdered Van Treese for drug money and that Glossip had nothing to do with this murder.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond ordered an independent review into Glossip’s case in January and retained former prosecutor Rex Duncan to review “all aspects of the investigation, trial, sentencing, and appeals process.”
Records from the U.S. Supreme Court state Glossip’s case was distributed for a conference to be held Feb. 17.
A Feb. 3 request from SCOTUS asked for “all exhibits, lodgings, and briefs that have been filed” in the cases filed with OCCA.
The nation’s top court states a case only needs four votes to be accepted for review with all conference decisions to be published at a later date.
“We are confident that this new investigation will reach the same conclusion,” Glossip’s attorney Don Knight previously said. “Richard Glossip is innocent of this crime.”
OCCA ruled in the denial of the first motion that affidavits “do not provide the clear and convincing evidence that Glossip would like this court to believe.”
The second denial came after an independent investigation the Reed Smith Law Firm conducted claimed Sneed talked about recanting his testimony over the course of 11 years.
The firm said Sneed wrote in a letter that his testimony was “a mistake” and asked his attorney if he had a choice of recanting “at anytime during my life.”
OCCA ruled the claim was based on “speculation” and that there was no evidence Sneed “had any desire to recant or change his testimony.”
State prosecutors argue the U.S. Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction over OCCA’s decision denying “relief based on an adequate and independent state law ground.”
Thirty-two state and federal prosecutors filed briefs in support of Glossip say his conviction and death sentence are “improperly premised upon the unreliable testimony of Justin Sneed, the admitted murdered of the victim, in exchange for his avoidance of a death sentence.”
“The State should not base its prosecution on ‘the manifestly unreliable, poisonous testimony of a self-interested jailhouse informant’ to secure a capital conviction,” the brief states.
State Rep. Kevin McDugle, R-Broken Arrow, also filed a brief in support of Glossip, reiterating the review findings “flatly contradicts the state’s portrayal of Sneed.”
“At best, Sneed told conflicting stories about the murder that render him completely incredible,” McDugle’s brief states. “At worst, Glossip is an innocent man condemned to die.
“States must be held accountable for their missteps in cases like Glossip’s, and the remedies must be free from onerous legal roadblocks by the very state that improperly convicted them,” he added.
McDugle previously said he would fight to end the death penalty in Oklahoma if Glossip is executed.
Stan Perry, a lawyer for Reed Smith, said during a June 2022 press conference 30 attorneys worked 3,000 pro-bono hours in creating the independent report in Glossip’s case."
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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;
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