Republican Oklahoma lawmakers seek hearing in death row case

OKLAHOMA CITY — Greater than 60 Oklahoma lawmakers, together with many Republicans who assist the dying penalty, urged the state legal professional normal to affix their request for a brand new evidentiary listening to within the case of dying row inmate Richard Glossip.

The group of 61 state legislators despatched a letter final week to Lawyer Common John O’Connor that pointed to an unbiased investigation by a Texas regulation agency that raised questions on Glossip’s guilt. Particulars of the report got here out a few weeks earlier than the Oklahoma Courtroom of Prison Appeals set a Sept. 22 execution date for Glossip.

“The report concluded that no affordable juror who heard all of the proof would discover Mr. Glossip responsible,” the letter said. “As elected officers representing the residents of this nice state, we consider it’s vitally necessary to conduct a critical evaluation of this case in order that the reality may be conclusively discovered.”

The report by the Houston regulation agency Reed Smith didn’t discover any definitive proof of Glossip’s innocence, however raised considerations about misplaced or destroyed proof and a detective asking main inquiries to Glossip’s co-defendant, Justin Sneed, to implicate Glossip within the 1997 killing of Glossip’s boss, motel proprietor Barry Van Treese. Sneed, who admitted killing Van Treese however mentioned he did so at Glossip’s path, was sentenced to life in jail and was a key witness towards Glossip.

O’Connor’s workplace did not instantly reply to a request for remark, however prosecutors in his workplace have urged the Courtroom of Prison Appeals to reject Glossip’s request for an evidentiary listening to, suggesting it is a delay tactic.

“The appellant’s actions on this sense are dilatory and solely lengthen the anticipate justice for the sufferer, Barry Van Treese, and his household on this case,” the state wrote in July after Glossip objected to the court docket setting his execution date.

Van Treese’s brother, Ken Van Treese, mentioned Monday that Glossip was twice convicted and twice sentenced to dying by two separate juries.

“Having sat via and testified at each, the details that have been introduced at each trials by no means various,” Van Treese wrote in a message to The Related Press. “So far as I am involved, the responsible verdicts awarded have been utterly justified and the duly sworn jurors agreed with details introduced.

“The residents of Oklahoma made this willpower primarily based upon the details within the case. They determined the case primarily based upon Oklahoma regulation.”

Glossip, now 59, has maintained his innocence. He has been scheduled to be executed three separate occasions, solely to be spared shortly earlier than the sentence was set to be carried out. He was simply hours from being executed in September 2015 when jail officers realized they’d obtained the improper deadly drug, a mix-up that led partially to a virtually seven-year moratorium on the dying penalty in Oklahoma.

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Comply with Sean Murphy at www.twitter.com/apseanmurphy