GIST: "Oklahoma’s new Attorney General Gentner Drummond plans to ask the state’s Pardon and Parole Board on Wednesday to recommend sparing the life of death row inmate Richard Glossip, a highly unusual move for the state’s top prosecutor’s office that typically urges the board to reject clemency.
In a letter dated Monday to the five-member board, Drummond wrote that he has serious concerns about the fairness of Glossip’s trial and cited two independent reviews of the case that recommended Glossip be granted a new trial.
“I am not aware of an Oklahoma Attorney General ever supporting a clemency application for a death row inmate,” Drummond wrote. “In every previous case that has come before this board, the state has maintained full confidence in the integrity of the conviction. That is simply not the case in this matter due to the material evidence that was not disclosed to the jury.”
Drummond previously asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to vacate Glossip’s conviction, saying in a court filing that although the state is not suggesting Glossip is innocent, he had numerous concerns about the trial, including that the key witness against Glossip lied to the jury about his psychiatric treatment and reasons for taking the mood-stabilizing drug lithium. But the court rejected that request last month, paving the way for Glossip to be executed on May 18.
Glossip’s attorney, Don Knight, did not immediately return a message left with his office after hours.
Glossip, now 60, was convicted of the 1997 murder-for-hire killing of his boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese, at two separate trials based largely on the testimony of his co-defendant, Justin Sneed. Sneed admitted robbing and killing Van Treese, but he claims he only did so after Glossip agreed to pay him $10,000. Sneed received a sentence of life in prison.
The five-member Pardon and Parole Board is expected to consider Glossip’s clemency recommendation on Wednesday. If a majority of the board recommends clemency, it will be up to Gov. Kevin Stitt whether to allow the execution to proceed or commute Glossip’s sentence to life in prison.
Glossip has been just hours from being executed three times, including once in September 2015 when prison officials realized they had received the wrong lethal drug, a mix-up that helped prompt a nearly seven-year moratorium on the death penalty in Oklahoma."
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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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
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