An independent counsel has been appointed to review the murder conviction and dying sentence of Richard Glossip, a dying row inmate who has maintained his innocence in a 1997 murder-for-hire, after a rising physique of proof sparked calls for reassessment.
Oklahoma legal professional common Gentner Drummond on Thursday said {that a} complete review of Glossip’s conviction can be carried out by district legal professional Rex Duncan, together with the preliminary investigation by Oklahoma City police, two separate trials, sentencing, and appeals.
The determination comes after a rising innocence motion round Glossip’s case as rising proof advised the preliminary conviction was based mostly on shaky grounds.
“Circumstances surrounding this case necessitate a thorough review,” Mr Drummond stated in an announcement.
“While I am confident in our judicial system, that does not allow me to ignore evidence. This review helps ensure that justice is served, both to the (victim’s) family and the accused.”
Glossip, 59, was convicted of ordering the 1997 murder of his boss at an Oklahoma City motel and has been in legal justice limbo ever since. He has escaped the execution chamber three times, together with as soon as due to an unintentional mix-up by authorities with the deadly drug simply hours earlier than his sentence was set to be carried out.
Glossip has lengthy maintained his innocence within the case.
However, a push to show his innocence grew final 12 months when a Houston regulation agency that investigated his conviction after state lawmakers requested it discovered a slew of new information, elevating critical issues about whether or not Oklahoma was about to execute an harmless man.
The agency’s 30 attorneys working through 12,000 documents, reported there was some misplaced or destroyed proof within the case and {that a} detective, biased in opposition to Glossip, improperly requested main questions to a co-defendant Justin Sneed to implicate Glossip within the killing.
“Our conclusion is that no reasonable juror, hearing the complete record, and the uncovered facts … would have convicted Richard Glossip of capital murder,” Stan Perry, an legal professional for Houston-based Reed Smith who led the agency’s investigation, stated after the report was launched final 12 months.
On 7 January 1997, 19-year-old upkeep man Justin Sneed beat his boss, 54-year-old motel proprietor Barry Van Treese, to dying with a baseball bat. Oklahoma police arrested {the teenager}, who had a historical past of drug dependancy, violence, and previous legal offences, quickly after, and he admitted to robbing Treese.
However, his assertion on the time stated he did so solely after Glossip promised to pay him $10,000. A jury determined to sentence Sneed to life in jail and he was a key witness in opposition to Glossip at each of his trials.
Glossip, 33 on the time, who lived and labored on the lodge as supervisor and had no vital legal historical past, was believed to be the mastermind of the killing and was convicted later for murder-for-hire.
“The thing that didn’t make any sense right off the bat is Richard Glossip had all the money, he always had all the money. It was a cash kind of business. He would hold money until Van Treese came to pick it up,” Don Knight, Glossip’s present legal professional, instructed The Independent final 12 months.
“That never made any sense to me. You could have twice as much and you didn’t have to kill anybody to get it. You could just walk off. That was absolutely insane to me.”
Glossip is scheduled to be executed on 18 May, however the review has come as a ray of hope for the legal professionals.
“The new evidence we have uncovered since 2015 shows conclusively, as the first independent investigation by Reed Smith found, that no reasonable juror who viewed all the evidence would find Mr Glossip guilty of murder for hire,” Mr Knight stated in an announcement.
“We are confident that this new investigation will reach the same conclusion.”
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