Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #514 Jason Flom with Richard Glossip

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#514 Jason Flom with Richard Glossip · Wrongful Conviction

0:06
Speaker 1: Since we first released Richard Glossop's story, there have been
0:09
Speaker 1: some incredible developments. In the months following that release. A
0:13
Speaker 1: bipartisan group of Oklahoma legislators commissioned an independent, third party
0:18
Speaker 1: review of the case, which began in February twenty twenty two,
0:22
Speaker 1: and upon that November's election of Oklahoma Attorney General Ganner Drummond,
0:26
Speaker 1: the report was released along with his announcement admitting prosecutorial
0:30
Speaker 1: errors and Brady violations and that he'd be seeking a
0:34
Speaker 1: new trial, not conceding Richard's innocence, but acknowledging that the
0:37
Speaker 1: trial was unfair. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruled
0:41
Speaker 1: that Drummond's concession didn't provide statutory or legal grounds for relief,
0:46
Speaker 1: and over the last two years, that decision went all
0:48
Speaker 1: the way up to the US Supreme Court and were
0:52
Speaker 1: happy to report that they sided with Richard and Ganner Drummond,
0:56
Speaker 1: and his death sentence and conviction have finally been busied. Now.
1:01
Speaker 1: The majority decision was based on a Brady violation that
1:04
Speaker 1: doesn't directly speak to Richard's innocence, but the credibility of
1:07
Speaker 1: the state's only witness, Justin Snead, who testified falsely about
1:11
Speaker 1: his mental health treatment that went uncorrected by the state,
1:15
Speaker 1: but the credibility of sneed was critical to Richard's conviction.
1:21
Speaker 1: Richard will be removed from death row but remain in
1:24
Speaker 1: custody while awaiting a new trial in which two things
1:28
Speaker 1: are in his favor. The death penalty may not even
1:31
Speaker 1: be on the table. They may even be seeking a
1:34
Speaker 1: lesser charge depending on the remaining evidence. Additionally, the exculpatory
1:39
Speaker 1: material that has never been heard as a whole can
1:41
Speaker 1: now finally have its day in court. Here's Richard's incredible
1:46
Speaker 1: story in his own words. Richard Glossop was the manager
1:51
Speaker 1: of a cdmotel in Oklahoma City called the Best Budget
1:54
Speaker 1: in where he was responsible for large sums of cash
1:57
Speaker 1: belonging to its owner, Barry Van Treace, cash that he
2:00
Speaker 1: could have stolen at any time without violence. A traveling
2:04
Speaker 1: roofer and methadic named Justin Snead began staying at the
2:07
Speaker 1: motel in exchange for maintenance work while enjoying easy access
2:11
Speaker 1: to the drugs and prostitutes one might find at a
2:14
Speaker 1: seedy motel. In the early morning of January seventh, nineteen
2:18
Speaker 1: ninety seven, Stead and a girlfriend lured Barry Van Trees
2:21
Speaker 1: into Room one O two to rob him of the
2:24
Speaker 1: cash he was known to carry. Barry resisted and was
2:27
Speaker 1: bludgeoned and stabbed to death. His car was moved to
2:31
Speaker 1: a nearby lot. Later that morning, Snead off handedly told
2:35
Speaker 1: Richard that he had killed Barry, but after seeing that
2:38
Speaker 1: Barry's car was not at its usual spot, Richard dismissed
2:42
Speaker 1: what he thought was Sneed's usual drug adult ramblings. When
2:45
Speaker 1: the body was discovered, Richard told police about what Snead
2:48
Speaker 1: had said, causing them to focus on him. Even though
2:52
Speaker 1: Snead eventually confessed, the police steered him to implicate Richard
2:56
Speaker 1: as the mastermind of a murder for higher scheme for
2:59
Speaker 1: him his testimony, Snead escaped to death penalty in exchange
3:04
Speaker 1: from life without parole, swapping Richard into his place. The
3:08
Speaker 1: word of a meth head and alleged motive to steal
3:11
Speaker 1: cash was all.
3:11
Speaker 2: It took.
3:13
Speaker 1: Twenty four years, two trials, three stays of execution, a
3:16
Speaker 1: lethal injection drug scandal, and two Supreme Court cases later,
3:20
Speaker 1: Richard remains on death row in Oklahoma. This is wrongful
3:25
Speaker 1: conviction with Jason Flapp welcome back to wrongful conviction with
3:42
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm that's me. And if I sound a little
3:46
Speaker 1: down today, it's because this case that you're going to
3:49
Speaker 1: hear about is one of the most troubling cases I've
3:53
Speaker 1: ever heard of in my now twenty ninth year of
3:57
Speaker 1: doing this type of work. With us. Today we have
4:01
Speaker 1: one of the respected, even revered criminal and civil defense attorneys,
4:07
Speaker 1: a man named Don Knight. Welcome to ronfel conviction.
4:10
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jason. I appreciate that.
4:12
Speaker 1: And of course with us today calling in from the
4:16
Speaker 1: Oklahoma State Penitentiary where he is now in his twenty
4:21
Speaker 1: third year on death row, and that is of course,
4:24
Speaker 1: Richard Glossip.
4:26
Speaker 3: Hello, this is a collect call from for sure, an
4:31
Speaker 3: incarcerated individual at Oklahoma State Penitentiary. This call is not private.
4:36
Speaker 3: This call will be recorded and may be monitored. To
4:39
Speaker 3: consent to this recorded call, press one to disconnect. Thank
4:43
Speaker 3: you for using securists. You may start the conversation now.
4:47
Speaker 1: Hello, Richard. I'm sorry you're here under these circumstances, but
4:50
Speaker 1: I'm happier here.
4:52
Speaker 3: Oh that's cool. That's cool. Twenty four years of this
4:55
Speaker 3: and it stead a long battle and it dis continues,
4:58
Speaker 3: but the good thing is I'm still.
5:00
Speaker 1: Here, Richard, if you don't mind take us back to
5:03
Speaker 1: your childhood. You said, sort of an unusual childhood and
5:06
Speaker 1: moved from Illinois to Oklahoma. But also you were one
5:08
Speaker 1: of a lot of children, right, You had a lot
5:11
Speaker 1: of brothers and sisters.
5:12
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I actually grew up in Geilsburg, Illinois. There
5:15
Speaker 3: was sixteen of us. It was eight boys and eight girls.
5:18
Speaker 3: You know, I grew up around a lot of addiction
5:20
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, and you know, I just didn't
5:22
Speaker 3: think I was going to get anywhere if I stayed
5:24
Speaker 3: there any longer. And I left home when I was
5:26
Speaker 3: fourteen and just made it on my own.
5:28
Speaker 1: You know, it's actually kind of a miracle that you survived.
5:31
Speaker 1: I mean, we could do a whole podcast about that alone.
5:35
Speaker 1: But your story hadn't even begun yet. So, okay, you
5:39
Speaker 1: were strange from your family for many years, working and
5:42
Speaker 1: getting by. But how'd you end up in Oklahoma where
5:46
Speaker 1: you got a job at the best budget in working
5:48
Speaker 1: for Barry Van Trees.
5:50
Speaker 3: My mom and dad retired and they decided to move
5:54
Speaker 3: out here to Oklahoma to be closer to my mom's family.
5:57
Speaker 3: And in nineteen ninety three, my dad's health was and
6:00
Speaker 3: my mom asked me if I would come out here
6:02
Speaker 3: and spend some time with my dad, And that's how
6:05
Speaker 3: I ended up with the best budget in.
6:08
Speaker 4: Barry Van Trees didn't just run the best budget in
6:11
Speaker 4: Oklahoma City, he also ran best budget in in Tulsa.
6:15
Speaker 4: These were really low rent motels. They were a cash business.
6:20
Speaker 4: There was a lot of drug activity and prostitution. Barry
6:23
Speaker 4: Van Trees would come by every couple of weeks to
6:26
Speaker 4: the Oklahoma City Best Budget in where he would pick
6:28
Speaker 4: up the cash from Rich. Rich would have sometimes up
6:32
Speaker 4: to thirty thousand dollars in receipts depending on how long
6:35
Speaker 4: it took for Van Trees to come by the motel.
6:39
Speaker 4: So Rich was constantly handling large amounts of money and
6:43
Speaker 4: there was never any question about whether Rich was stealing money.
6:47
Speaker 4: He was not stealing anything at all.
6:49
Speaker 1: Right, And if he wanted to steal the money, he
6:51
Speaker 1: could have done so almost any time without violence, and
6:53
Speaker 1: he could have skipped down. But he never did, and
6:56
Speaker 1: certainly he didn't do so by involving a meth head
6:58
Speaker 1: named Justin Sneak. Now, Justin had come through town with
7:02
Speaker 1: a roof and crew out of Texas, and while he
7:04
Speaker 1: was staying at the best budget in and he worked
7:05
Speaker 1: out a deal for a free room in exchange for
7:07
Speaker 1: maintenance and other work around the motel.
7:10
Speaker 3: Right, yes, I said, hey, I need you to go
7:12
Speaker 3: take care of this, or I need to take these
7:14
Speaker 3: people from tiles or whatever the case may be. He
7:16
Speaker 3: always did it. But as time went by, it was
7:19
Speaker 3: getting harder to find him, and I was going to
7:21
Speaker 3: let him go a couple of times, but you know,
7:23
Speaker 3: very like the fact that he was working Beru the
7:26
Speaker 3: very God didn't want me to let him go. But yeah,
7:29
Speaker 3: towards all this happening, in the end, it was like
7:31
Speaker 3: I hardly ever found him to do what he was
7:33
Speaker 3: supposed to do.
7:35
Speaker 1: Did you catch any signs that he was using math?
7:38
Speaker 3: Well, they were up all the time. So I did
7:41
Speaker 3: have a couple of family members that did it, and
7:45
Speaker 3: so learning from how they acted, you know, I could
7:48
Speaker 3: tell that, yeah, definitely they want something. Justin was a
7:51
Speaker 3: very odd guy. He would say things that would throw
7:55
Speaker 3: you off. He would say things that would just make
7:56
Speaker 3: him scratch your head and go, man, this guy is
7:58
Speaker 3: just like really weird.
8:00
Speaker 1: So were there any signs that he might have been
8:02
Speaker 1: robbing people to support his habit.
8:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I had one of the a guy
8:06
Speaker 3: named John Bieber's king to me and that he was
8:08
Speaker 3: missing a big jar of coins. When he said he
8:11
Speaker 3: thought Justin did it. I didn't believe him, But hindsight
8:14
Speaker 3: is twenty.
8:15
Speaker 1: Twenty, right, Yeah, it sure is. And at the time
8:18
Speaker 1: you and your girlfriend Deanna Wood were spending a lot
8:20
Speaker 1: of time together and most of it at the motel.
8:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, I lived on the property. I lived behind the
8:25
Speaker 3: front desk in an apartment, so I'm always on the
8:28
Speaker 3: property other than like DN and i'd being able to
8:31
Speaker 3: go out and do something on our own. Why the
8:32
Speaker 3: desk pork was there?
8:34
Speaker 1: Now this brings us all the way up to January seventh,
8:37
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven. At six am, Justin Snead woke rich
8:41
Speaker 1: up and told him about a broken window and then
8:44
Speaker 1: kind of off handily says, oh, and by the way,
8:46
Speaker 1: I killed Barry. Now, Snead was known for saying weird
8:49
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and so when Richard looked at Barry's
8:52
Speaker 1: usual parking spot and didn't see Barry's car, he wrote
8:55
Speaker 1: it off as Sneed just being Sneid. Now, later on
8:58
Speaker 1: Barry Venturees's car was spotted in the Credit Union parking
9:01
Speaker 1: lot about fifty yards away from the Best Budget, but
9:04
Speaker 1: there was no sign of Barry, so this kicked off
9:07
Speaker 1: a search, and Rich was out shopping with his girlfriend
9:10
Speaker 1: Deiana and was called back to work around three pm.
9:13
Speaker 1: So at this point Rich is wondering do I tell
9:16
Speaker 1: the police about what sneeds said? But he Indiana decided
9:20
Speaker 1: against it because they didn't even know if Barry was
9:22
Speaker 1: dead or not. And finally at ten pm, Barry's body
9:26
Speaker 1: was discovered in room one oh two. He had been
9:29
Speaker 1: beaten with a baseball bat as well as having been
9:32
Speaker 1: stabbed with a blunt object.
9:34
Speaker 4: What happened here was that Barry van Trees stopped in
9:38
Speaker 4: in the evening of January sixth, took care of payroll
9:42
Speaker 4: and took care of everybody at the Best Budget in
9:45
Speaker 4: Oklahoma City before leaving and driving to Tulsa to take
9:49
Speaker 4: care of the payroll and the situation in Tulsa. He
9:53
Speaker 4: didn't get to Tulsa till around midnight or so and didn't.
9:58
Speaker 2: Stay there very long.
9:59
Speaker 4: Told the people in tolsonhen he left to tell his
10:02
Speaker 4: wife that he would be home in five and a
10:05
Speaker 4: half hours. Home was Lawton Oklahoma. It doesn't take five
10:08
Speaker 4: and a half hours to get to Lawton, so obviously,
10:11
Speaker 4: when he said that he had plans to stop, he
10:14
Speaker 4: stopped back the best budget in in Oklahoma City where
10:18
Speaker 4: he went to room one oh two, and that's where
10:21
Speaker 4: Justin Snead was waiting for him, or at least his
10:25
Speaker 4: girlfriend was waiting for him. Because we have found out
10:29
Speaker 4: that there was another person involved in this case. It
10:33
Speaker 4: wasn't Rich Glossop, but it was Justin Snead's girlfriend. The
10:37
Speaker 4: information that we have found is that it was simply
10:41
Speaker 4: a robbery attempt. These two meth fueled young people thought
10:46
Speaker 4: they could simply take the keys from Barry Van Trees
10:51
Speaker 4: and get the money out of his car without Van
10:53
Speaker 4: Trees knowing or objecting. I don't know what their plan was.
10:58
Speaker 4: We talked to one witness and she had a great statement.
11:01
Speaker 4: She said, when you've been on meth for twenty days
11:04
Speaker 4: in a row, the idea fairy appears. That looks like
11:08
Speaker 4: what happened here. These two people knew Barry Van Trees
11:13
Speaker 4: had a lot of money, and so we think that
11:15
Speaker 4: he was lured into room one h two by this girl.
11:18
Speaker 4: He knew he was coming back to that place and
11:21
Speaker 4: once there, confronted by Justin Snead. From the information we
11:26
Speaker 4: have that we have found from new witnesses, Sneid admitted
11:29
Speaker 4: that he was intending simply to take Van Trees's money
11:33
Speaker 4: and not kill him. But Van Trees fought back, and
11:37
Speaker 4: at the end of that fight, Barry van Trees was
11:39
Speaker 4: beaten to death. It wasn't just beaten to death, but
11:42
Speaker 4: there was also some stab wounds on his body from
11:46
Speaker 4: a very blunt object. And the blunt object appears to
11:49
Speaker 4: be a pocket knife that the police found in the
11:52
Speaker 4: motel room that had its tip broken off. So for
11:57
Speaker 4: this murder, Justin Snead and his girlfriend had two weapons,
12:03
Speaker 4: a baseball bat and a broken knife.
12:06
Speaker 2: It would be.
12:06
Speaker 1: Really low on anyone's choices of how to go right, sure.
12:11
Speaker 4: But also I think low on somebody's idea of how
12:14
Speaker 4: to kill somebody. I mean, if you're really planning to
12:16
Speaker 4: murder someone, you don't go with a dull knife in
12:18
Speaker 4: a baseball bat. You know. It sounds like a bad
12:22
Speaker 4: plan from mess fueled young people. And the aftermath was
12:27
Speaker 4: a continuation of that bad plan.
12:30
Speaker 2: The vehicle where.
12:31
Speaker 4: The money was was moved not more than fifty yards,
12:37
Speaker 4: not as if it was moved away so that it
12:38
Speaker 4: could be hidden. It was within plain view of the
12:42
Speaker 4: best budget in in a credit union, right next to
12:44
Speaker 4: the best budget in. It was found there the next
12:47
Speaker 4: morning by the security guard off duty sheriff's deputy working
12:52
Speaker 4: at the way Yoki credit Union found this vehicle sort
12:55
Speaker 4: of with one tire up on the curb, parked in
12:58
Speaker 4: a place that it shouldn't be parked, and that's what
13:00
Speaker 4: started the investigation on the seventh into Barryvan Teresa's death.
13:06
Speaker 1: So you might notice that rich hasn't been mentioned yet
13:10
Speaker 1: in the story of this crime, and that's because no one,
13:13
Speaker 1: not even the prosecution, ever claimed that he was even
13:17
Speaker 1: in the room when it happened. Rich was sleeping in
13:21
Speaker 1: the apartment behind the front desk with his girlfriend. That's undisputed.
13:25
Speaker 1: So why are we even having this conversation and how
13:29
Speaker 1: is rich on death row? Well, the lead investigators in
13:32
Speaker 1: this case, bimohen Cook, who did little to no investigation,
13:36
Speaker 1: basically didn't talk to anyone at the motel and instead
13:40
Speaker 1: focused on Richard early on for a few very ill
13:45
Speaker 1: conceived reasons.
13:46
Speaker 4: They focus on rich and I think the first reason
13:49
Speaker 4: is Rich's last name is Glossom. Rich's family was a
13:52
Speaker 4: known family with a criminal history in Oklahoma, So I
13:55
Speaker 4: think that's one thing. The second thing when they found
14:00
Speaker 4: Van Trees's body at ten o'clock and they said, you know, Rich,
14:05
Speaker 4: why shot You come in and sit and talk with us.
14:07
Speaker 4: And was at that point that Rich told them about
14:11
Speaker 4: that statement that Sneed made. That was the point I
14:15
Speaker 4: think when the police said, oh, well, he's hiding something.
14:18
Speaker 4: And I think that, in combination with Rich's last name,
14:21
Speaker 4: I think that's what made the police begin to think
14:24
Speaker 4: Rich Glossip had something to do.
14:25
Speaker 2: With this case.
14:27
Speaker 1: They decide to focus on this one statement that he omitted, right,
14:33
Speaker 1: which is, I don't know that I would have done
14:36
Speaker 1: anything differently myself.
14:38
Speaker 4: It's clearly his right to do so. I mean, he
14:40
Speaker 4: doesn't have to talk to the police. Nobody has to
14:42
Speaker 4: talk to the police.
14:44
Speaker 1: After this initial interview, on the seventh, Rich sells some
14:47
Speaker 1: personal items to raise money for a lawyer and talk
14:50
Speaker 1: to an attorney named David Mackenzie, who told him quite
14:53
Speaker 1: rightly to not speak with the police. But Rich did
14:55
Speaker 1: what a lot of innocent people do, right. He believed
14:59
Speaker 1: that just telling the truth, we'll set you free. So
15:03
Speaker 1: he talked to Bemo and Cook anyway.
15:05
Speaker 4: In the parking lot of Mackenzie's office, the police were
15:09
Speaker 4: waiting for Rich. Rather than tell them I can't talk
15:14
Speaker 4: to you because this lawyer just told me this is
15:17
Speaker 4: what I'm supposed to say, Rich says, okay, I'll talk
15:20
Speaker 4: to you, and Demo and Cook.
15:22
Speaker 2: To have a real bad history.
15:24
Speaker 4: Of how they do their interrogations, and when they set
15:28
Speaker 4: themselves upon Rich, they were going to do what they
15:31
Speaker 4: could do to try to get Rich to say things
15:34
Speaker 4: that they could say were inconsistent, and then they would
15:37
Speaker 4: start driving that home to try to get him to
15:40
Speaker 4: confess to this crime.
15:43
Speaker 1: But he never does confess to the crime. However, they
15:47
Speaker 1: start trying to tell him that he said things in
15:49
Speaker 1: his initial interview on the seventh that he did not.
15:53
Speaker 1: They tried to catch him in lies with lies of
15:56
Speaker 1: their own, and it's clear that they have their sites
16:00
Speaker 1: set on him. Meanwhile, Snead took off on the afternoon
16:04
Speaker 1: of the seventh, before Barry's body was even found. He
16:07
Speaker 1: went off working with the roofing crew that he came
16:09
Speaker 1: into town with from Texas, trying to make himself scarce.
16:12
Speaker 2: Basically, yeah, he left.
16:13
Speaker 4: New motel sometime after three o'clock, just took a skateboard
16:17
Speaker 4: and took off again. It was it's something that the
16:19
Speaker 4: prosecutor in both trials tried to paint that he was
16:24
Speaker 4: totally dependent on Glossop for everything because he had no
16:27
Speaker 4: way of making any money, which was just wrong. I mean,
16:30
Speaker 4: first off, he was stealing the place blind, he was
16:32
Speaker 4: breaking into motel rooms, he was breaking into cars, he
16:36
Speaker 4: was doing everything he could do to get money for
16:38
Speaker 4: his drug habit. But when he left the motel that.
16:42
Speaker 2: Day, he skateboarded over to where the people who he.
16:46
Speaker 4: Used to work for doing roofing were and he joined
16:51
Speaker 4: the roofing crew again. So he had the opportunity at
16:55
Speaker 4: any point in time to go make more money doing
16:58
Speaker 4: his roofing work than he ever made it the best
17:00
Speaker 4: budget in and he did that on that day. They
17:03
Speaker 4: didn't catch Snead until the fourteenth of January. It was
17:08
Speaker 4: the owner of the roofing company who seeing the news
17:11
Speaker 4: accounts of what had happened and seeing Sneed's picture on
17:14
Speaker 4: the news, that said to Sneid, I think you need
17:16
Speaker 4: to turn yourself in. So he's the one that called
17:18
Speaker 4: the police and that's when they interrogated Snead.
17:21
Speaker 1: Right, and in Sneed's interrogation it's clear that Rich is
17:24
Speaker 1: their main target. So they start working Snead over to
17:27
Speaker 1: both admit to the crime and implicate Rich in some way.
17:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, this was not a situation where they were saying, okay, justin,
17:33
Speaker 4: we've caught you, why don't you tell us what happened. Instead,
17:36
Speaker 4: they go through this long prelude telling him what happened,
17:39
Speaker 4: telling him what they know, telling him that they know
17:42
Speaker 4: that somebody else was involved, and they don't want him
17:44
Speaker 4: to hang alone. And in Sneed's first is like, I
17:46
Speaker 4: don't even know what to say. I don't know what
17:47
Speaker 4: to tell you, as if he didn't have anything to
17:49
Speaker 4: do with it. And then they brought Rich's name into it.
17:53
Speaker 4: We think Rich had something to do with it. You know,
17:55
Speaker 4: he's under arrest. So Snead never said anything about Glossop
17:59
Speaker 4: at all. That came from the police, and then they
18:03
Speaker 4: began to work with Sneid from there until they finally got.
18:08
Speaker 2: This sort of crazy idea about.
18:10
Speaker 4: Rich wanting to steal the money, kill Van Trees and
18:14
Speaker 4: split the money with Snead, and somehow or another they
18:16
Speaker 4: would run the motels some crazy story that came out,
18:21
Speaker 4: which I think you would probably expect from somebody who's
18:23
Speaker 4: high on.
18:23
Speaker 1: Math, right, and who's being fed information by police who
18:27
Speaker 1: are exactly not interested in the truth here, so.
18:32
Speaker 4: Right, because if they had been interested in the truth,
18:34
Speaker 4: they simply would have said, why don't you tell us
18:35
Speaker 4: what happened? Tell us everything that you know.
18:38
Speaker 1: And so Snead confesses to the murder. But what's clear
18:41
Speaker 1: from his interrogation is that he was steered to drag
18:44
Speaker 1: Rich into it as the mastermind of a murder for
18:46
Speaker 1: higher plot, and then Snead uses this made up scenario
18:51
Speaker 1: to save himself, making a deal for a life without
18:55
Speaker 1: parole instead of the death held.
18:57
Speaker 4: We have a witness who says he talked to Sneed
19:01
Speaker 4: that year while he was in jail with Sneed, and
19:04
Speaker 4: as Sneed said, I had two main goals. One I
19:07
Speaker 4: didn't want the death penalty and two I didn't want
19:10
Speaker 4: my girlfriend to get caught. Sneed got both of what
19:14
Speaker 4: he wanted at Rich's expense.
19:27
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss Rifkin, Porton and Garrison,
19:31
Speaker 1: a leading international law firm. Paul Weiss has long had
19:35
Speaker 1: an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance
19:39
Speaker 1: to the most vulnerable members of our society and in
19:42
Speaker 1: support of the public interest, including extensive work in the
19:45
Speaker 1: criminal justice area.
19:54
Speaker 3: Detective Demo in the document series that Was Done changed
19:58
Speaker 3: what he testified at two trials, and it was a
20:01
Speaker 3: murder for hire. He gives the statement in our docu
20:04
Speaker 3: series where he says, Oh, I think it was a
20:06
Speaker 3: robbery went bad. That's the original story that Justin gave him,
20:11
Speaker 3: that it was a robbery went bad, and they knew
20:13
Speaker 3: that that's what it was, but they needed it to
20:15
Speaker 3: be more. In my opinion, you know, prosecutors and stuff
20:18
Speaker 3: need these notches in their belt so bad so they
20:20
Speaker 3: can further their career.
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Speaker 2: And it doesn't matter.
20:23
Speaker 3: Who they get that notch from, as long as they
20:26
Speaker 3: get it. My first judge, Judge Johnson, even looked at
20:30
Speaker 3: the prosecutor and said, I don't understand where this is
20:34
Speaker 3: the murder case, and she convinced the judge will give
20:38
Speaker 3: me some time. And that's the only reason the judge
20:41
Speaker 3: even allowed it to go forward, because he was convinced
20:43
Speaker 3: by a prosecutor to let her build a case.
20:47
Speaker 1: Okay, So don There is a villain in this story,
20:51
Speaker 1: of course. I'm talking about then district's attorney, Bob Macy,
20:55
Speaker 1: who was nicknamed the Angel of Death, and he seemed
20:59
Speaker 1: to get off on winning death penalty cases, innocent, guilty, whatever.
21:07
Speaker 1: He played dress up like a cowboy, although he was
21:11
Speaker 1: not a cowboy. Can you tell us about this awful character.
21:16
Speaker 4: Bob Macy's just one of a handful of prosecuting attorneys
21:20
Speaker 4: in the country that really drives the death penalty in
21:25
Speaker 4: this country. There are only a handful of places where
21:28
Speaker 4: most of the death penalty verdicts come from, or at least
21:31
Speaker 4: that has been the way in the past. New Orleans
21:34
Speaker 4: there was certainly one in Oklahoma City. And these prosecutors
21:38
Speaker 4: they derive their power, i think, and their political base
21:42
Speaker 4: from seeking and getting the death penalty. They look at
21:45
Speaker 4: that as being tough on crime, and Bob Macy certainly
21:49
Speaker 4: forged his legacy with all of that in mind. I
21:52
Speaker 4: think the thing that happens in these places is it
21:57
Speaker 4: can't just be one person that does this, but it
22:01
Speaker 4: becomes a culture. He was in power in Oklahoma City
22:05
Speaker 4: for a long time. A lot of his prosecutors went
22:08
Speaker 4: on to become judges. So now you've got not just
22:12
Speaker 4: the prosecuting attorney's office, but they're on the bench as well.
22:15
Speaker 4: So they've got judges, prosecutors, forensic people, you've got police,
22:19
Speaker 4: and you've got jurors who are just ready to go
22:22
Speaker 4: on these death penalty cases. And they begin to sort
22:27
Speaker 4: of cow the defense bar into either going along and
22:32
Speaker 4: getting their clients some kind of plea or they lose
22:37
Speaker 4: at trial, and these death verdicts result. It becomes a
22:41
Speaker 4: cultural situation where you have no one fighting anymore for
22:44
Speaker 4: the defendant and to sort of get on the train
22:47
Speaker 4: or get run over by the trained mentality takes over.
22:51
Speaker 1: So Rich is charged with capital murder, which the fact
22:54
Speaker 1: that he's being tried for his life or not having
22:57
Speaker 1: killed anyone is insane in and of its but that's
23:00
Speaker 1: a totally another story. And so a trial sneed testified
23:04
Speaker 1: that Rich was the mastermind behind this murder for higher plot,
23:09
Speaker 1: thereby receiving the direct benefit of not being sent to
23:12
Speaker 1: death row himself. I feel like this should have been
23:15
Speaker 1: easy to be.
23:17
Speaker 4: So Rich had a terrible lawyer, guy named Wayne Farnarat.
23:20
Speaker 4: In the first trial, he never I don't even know
23:23
Speaker 4: if he ever tried.
23:23
Speaker 2: A case before.
23:25
Speaker 4: He was completely incompetent and put on no witnesses, didn't
23:30
Speaker 4: know how to cross examine anybody. Basically, the case went
23:33
Speaker 4: exactly as the prosecutors wanted it to go, and Rich
23:37
Speaker 4: was sentenced to death. Kaunerot had no idea how to
23:39
Speaker 4: do a penalty phase in a death case. He didn't
23:42
Speaker 4: do any investigation. I mean, Rich was a guy without
23:45
Speaker 4: a criminal history at all. I mean, if you're talking
23:47
Speaker 4: about the death penalty in the United States, you're supposedly
23:50
Speaker 4: talking about the worst of the worst. Well, Rich had
23:53
Speaker 4: never committed a crime before. How could he possibly be
23:56
Speaker 4: the worst of the worst? Is this crime bad?
23:59
Speaker 2: Yes?
23:59
Speaker 4: Is it the worst crime ever? No, it's not the
24:01
Speaker 4: worst crime ever. So he doesn't fit that category at all.
24:05
Speaker 4: And yet, because of the way things were in Oklahoma
24:09
Speaker 4: at the time, they were able to get a conviction
24:12
Speaker 4: and a death sentence.
24:13
Speaker 1: Right So was Rich convicted solely on the basis of
24:17
Speaker 1: the testimony of a murderous meth head or was there
24:20
Speaker 1: some sort of other evidence offered a trial?
24:22
Speaker 4: I would answer the question in both ways. Yes, no question.
24:26
Speaker 4: It was really all about what Snead said, and he
24:30
Speaker 4: said very many different things at different times. He initially
24:35
Speaker 4: told the police that Glossip told him to kill Van
24:40
Speaker 4: Trees and rob him of somewhere around five thousand dollars
24:43
Speaker 4: and they would split it. But by the time the
24:46
Speaker 4: first trial rolled around, Snead added things like Rich told
24:51
Speaker 4: me to go buy some muriatic acid because we were
24:54
Speaker 4: going to melt the body and I wasn't able to
24:57
Speaker 4: do that. So Sneed had a variety of story worries
25:00
Speaker 4: that ultimately came out that just simply shows that he
25:04
Speaker 4: was not telling the truth. He was never consistent with
25:06
Speaker 4: anything that he said, and the prosecutor had to sort
25:09
Speaker 4: of cobble together what the Court of Appeals would later
25:12
Speaker 4: call corroborating evidence that was really really weak from a
25:16
Speaker 4: standpoint of corroborating evidence. They had put together a spreadsheet
25:20
Speaker 4: and an allegation that Rich was stealing money, that somehow
25:25
Speaker 4: or another, the Van Trees family knew he was stealing
25:28
Speaker 4: money and that they were about to fire him, and
25:31
Speaker 4: Rich knew he was about to be fired, and so
25:34
Speaker 4: that formed the motive for Rich to do this killing.
25:38
Speaker 4: There is no real evidence of that. We took a
25:40
Speaker 4: look at that spreadsheet, which, by the way, no one
25:43
Speaker 4: did until we got involved in this case. We have
25:46
Speaker 4: two forensic accountants who looked at it and they said,
25:49
Speaker 4: the idea that Rich was stealing money based upon the
25:51
Speaker 4: information that we see is crazy.
25:54
Speaker 1: So after his first conviction, Rich took his case to
25:57
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, who called the evidence
26:01
Speaker 1: against him extremely weak.
26:04
Speaker 4: And the Oklahoma Quarter Criminal Appeals looked at the job
26:07
Speaker 4: that Wayne Farnerott did and said this can't be okay,
26:10
Speaker 4: and in a unanimous verdict which never happened undirect appeal
26:14
Speaker 4: threw it back and said he gets a new trial.
26:18
Speaker 1: Right. So the second trial rolls around and Oklahoma is
26:21
Speaker 1: not done with their dirty tricks. And you know what
26:23
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the way that they managed to remove
26:27
Speaker 1: an attorney who was prepared to probably win this case
26:32
Speaker 1: and right this wrong.
26:34
Speaker 4: Yeah, this lawyer was the appellate lawyer for Rich, a
26:38
Speaker 4: guy named Lynn Birch, did a great job getting the
26:41
Speaker 4: case tossed out on appeal, decided to keep it, and
26:45
Speaker 4: was working the case leading up to the second trial
26:48
Speaker 4: when he made an error. And that is going to
26:52
Speaker 4: see Justin Snead. The night before the trial began. They
26:56
Speaker 4: think Lynn Birch was looking to see if there was
26:58
Speaker 4: some way that Sneed would simply come clean and tell
27:02
Speaker 4: the truth. The air that Lynn Birch made was not
27:04
Speaker 4: taking an investigator with him, not taking a third party,
27:07
Speaker 4: because when he showed up in court the next morning.
27:10
Speaker 2: The prosecutor said, Judge, we've.
27:12
Speaker 4: Got a problem. Lynn Birch was threatening our witness and
27:15
Speaker 4: was harassing Justin Snead. Rather than fight that, which I
27:19
Speaker 4: think Burch should have done, he should have said, I
27:22
Speaker 4: didn't do anything like that. I never said anything wrong.
27:24
Speaker 4: Let me tell you what I told him. Put me
27:26
Speaker 4: on the witness stand, put Sneed on the witness stand,
27:28
Speaker 4: let's have it out. Birch simply said, you know, okay,
27:32
Speaker 4: you know I probably screwed up in there, and he
27:35
Speaker 4: left the case the morning of trial, which caused a
27:38
Speaker 4: six month extension. But with Birch gone, it left it
27:43
Speaker 4: in the hands of two lawyers who were not prepared
27:45
Speaker 4: for the trial, and he did very little in the
27:48
Speaker 4: lead up to the next trial. They did no investigation,
27:51
Speaker 4: they put on no witnesses, their cross examinations were horrible.
27:55
Speaker 4: They allowed the prosecution to run wild with leading questions. Basically,
27:59
Speaker 4: the kids were greased and the prosecution just got their
28:03
Speaker 4: case through like they wanted.
28:05
Speaker 3: In the second trial, it was really strange because the
28:07
Speaker 3: prosecutor came into the courtroom, she looked at the jury
28:10
Speaker 3: and she goes, I have no evidence against Richard clad
28:14
Speaker 3: just justin sneath. So now it becomes who you're going
28:17
Speaker 3: to believe. Every witness had new testimony. Who when they
28:22
Speaker 3: were asked, oh, you didn't remember it the day it happened,
28:25
Speaker 3: but you remember it seven years later, And they would
28:27
Speaker 3: sit there and say, the prosecutor helped us remember.
28:32
Speaker 1: As a result, the results were predictable, which is that
28:35
Speaker 1: in August two thousand and four, another Oklahoma jury found
28:38
Speaker 1: Richard guilty and Richard gets sentenced to death again.
28:43
Speaker 3: It's strange how you go through your whole life doing
28:46
Speaker 3: what's right, thinking that you know, if you tell the truth,
28:50
Speaker 3: then everything's going to be okay. And then you're standing
28:53
Speaker 3: there when somebody says, you know, we find you guilty
28:56
Speaker 3: of murder and you had nothing to do with this
28:58
Speaker 3: prime and your your mouth this balls opening. This feeling
29:01
Speaker 3: comes over you like, how can this possibly be happening
29:04
Speaker 3: to me? This doesn't make sense. It's one of the
29:07
Speaker 3: strangest feelings that's really hard to put into work. But
29:11
Speaker 3: it's just like every part of you just goes now.
29:16
Speaker 3: It's like you're just in shock, and you don't know,
29:19
Speaker 3: you don't even have a response to it. You just
29:22
Speaker 3: stand there and you just like you just can't even
29:24
Speaker 3: believe it. It's one of the most overwhelming things I've
29:26
Speaker 3: ever had to face, you know, when I walked in.
29:47
Speaker 3: They take you to the main gate up there, and
29:49
Speaker 3: they put you in this little shock. They wait to
29:51
Speaker 3: get people to take you down to agna where you're
29:53
Speaker 3: supposed to go, and I got to be honest with you,
29:56
Speaker 3: and they open that door, like your whole disappears almost
30:02
Speaker 3: immediately because it's so gloomy and so cold. In all honesty,
30:07
Speaker 3: it felt like death. It just felt like you were
30:11
Speaker 3: surrounded by death.
30:13
Speaker 2: Rich.
30:13
Speaker 1: I want you to know that there are a lot
30:15
Speaker 1: of good people who are out here pulling for you
30:17
Speaker 1: more than you even know. And so you ended up
30:21
Speaker 1: exhausting all of your appeals with substandard representation who never
30:26
Speaker 1: did any of the necessary investigation into your case, so
30:30
Speaker 1: predictably you had more of the same results, which brings
30:33
Speaker 1: us to your clemency proceedings back in twenty fourteen.
30:36
Speaker 3: Which turned out to be just as big of a
30:39
Speaker 3: fiasco as my trials did.
30:41
Speaker 2: Now.
30:41
Speaker 3: I was turned down for Clymothy, and the reason being
30:44
Speaker 3: is not only was there a prosecutor from my case
30:47
Speaker 3: on the board, Bob Macy's Sun was as well, and
30:51
Speaker 3: when we brought to their attentions after him, I was
30:54
Speaker 3: denied Clymathy. The clemency board claimed that they had no
30:56
Speaker 3: idea that she had been as here on my case?
31:01
Speaker 1: Did she not remember?
31:03
Speaker 3: She knew me really well?
31:04
Speaker 1: And Bob Macy Sun is there as well.
31:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe some still has something to do with the
31:10
Speaker 3: billboard today.
31:11
Speaker 1: I'm rarely at a loss for words, but that is
31:13
Speaker 1: just ridiculous.
31:15
Speaker 3: I know, why don't we have anybody that had anything
31:18
Speaker 3: to do about me or his office on a parole
31:21
Speaker 3: board that deals with that throw inmids.
31:25
Speaker 1: So your clemency was denied, but you didn't take that.
31:28
Speaker 3: Sitting down in o Sober twenty fourteen, I started this campaign.
31:34
Speaker 3: I was writing letters on hundreds of letters to everybody.
31:37
Speaker 3: I wrote letters to John McCain, who answered me, by
31:39
Speaker 3: the way, who I became friends with, and he introduced
31:42
Speaker 3: my case to people here in Oklahoma like Tom Koger
31:44
Speaker 3: and others who sit up for me back then.
31:48
Speaker 1: So, while Richard was fighting for his life, other significant
31:51
Speaker 1: events were afoot concerning the way in which the state
31:54
Speaker 1: planned to kill him and others. Lethal injection Lethal injection
31:58
Speaker 1: as a method of state sanction murder, consists of three drugs.
32:01
Speaker 1: A sedative, which depresses the nervous system and renders a
32:04
Speaker 1: person unconscious, next a paralytic, which provides skeletal and muscular
32:09
Speaker 1: relaxation as well as depresses respiration, and finally a potassium
32:14
Speaker 1: solution which causes cardiac arrest. The most common lethal injection
32:18
Speaker 1: drug combination is for the sedative sodium theopental or pentobarbitol,
32:24
Speaker 1: then pancuronium bromide as the paralytic, and finally potassium chloride,
32:28
Speaker 1: which causes the heart attack. In twenty eleven, some American
32:33
Speaker 1: pharma companies halted production of sodium theopental, and the European
32:37
Speaker 1: Union enacted a torture regulation that banned the export of
32:41
Speaker 1: drugs for the use of lethal injections, starting with sodium
32:44
Speaker 1: theopental and later pentobarbitol. So by twenty fourteen, states were
32:49
Speaker 1: experiencing a shortage of the necessary drugs, which affected their
32:53
Speaker 1: ability to carry out death sentences according to protocol, Oklahoma
32:57
Speaker 1: began looking for alternatives like medazolin in place of sodium theopental.
33:02
Speaker 1: Following this change, the forty three minute long botched execution
33:07
Speaker 1: of Clayton Lockett on April twenty ninth, twenty fourteen. Another
33:12
Speaker 1: death row inmate, Charles Warner, awaited the same fate that night,
33:16
Speaker 1: just steps away from the death chamber, but as a
33:19
Speaker 1: result of the horror of Lockett's execution, Warners was delayed.
33:23
Speaker 1: After an investigation, Oklahoma blamed an inability to find Lockett's
33:28
Speaker 1: veins as the cause of the botched execution and decided
33:31
Speaker 1: to continue with the same drug protocol involving medazlam as
33:35
Speaker 1: a sedative, prompting Richard, Charles Warner, and nineteen others to
33:39
Speaker 1: sue Oklahoma, and eventually they took the case all the
33:43
Speaker 1: way to the Supreme Court the United States. While this
33:46
Speaker 1: was being litigated, Richard's clemency was denied and his campaign
33:50
Speaker 1: from death row was just beginning. He got in touch
33:53
Speaker 1: with renowned death penalty abolitionist sister Helen Prejhn with his
33:57
Speaker 1: first execution date and Warner's loom in January twenty fifteen.
34:03
Speaker 4: So in late twenty fourteen, he calls sister Helen, or
34:07
Speaker 4: he sends her a letter and says, hey, sister Helen,
34:10
Speaker 4: you know, will you be with me when they kill me?
34:13
Speaker 4: And she looks into the case a little bit and
34:15
Speaker 4: then she calls me. And I got together with another
34:17
Speaker 4: lawyer named Mark Olive who does a lot of state
34:20
Speaker 4: habeas work. And by now we're out of options. I
34:23
Speaker 4: mean there's no court appearances left, clemency has been done. Basically,
34:28
Speaker 4: we're out of options. At this point in time, Rich
34:31
Speaker 4: comes up for an execution date.
34:34
Speaker 1: So Oklahoma sets the date for January twenty nine, twenty fifteen.
34:38
Speaker 1: And a lot of people don't know this, but in
34:39
Speaker 1: Oklahoma and other states, a period of real psychological torture
34:45
Speaker 1: begins prior to execution.
34:47
Speaker 3: Now, I was taken upstairs. They take you up thirty
34:50
Speaker 3: five days prior to your execution. You have to sit
34:53
Speaker 3: in this room that is so brightly lit for twenty
34:55
Speaker 3: four hours a day. Lights never go out so bright
34:59
Speaker 3: that I can see a tiny ant walking across a
35:03
Speaker 3: dark and gray floor. That's how bright that rumor is.
35:07
Speaker 3: You're on camera twenty four to seven, and you have
35:10
Speaker 3: a guard sitting outside your door twenty four seven. You
35:13
Speaker 3: can't cover your head. You can't do any of that.
35:17
Speaker 3: This is what people have to endure in Oklahoma before
35:20
Speaker 3: they're executed.
35:22
Speaker 1: While he and war are away to death. The suit
35:24
Speaker 1: continued in litigation, and on January thirteenth, twenty fifteen, the
35:28
Speaker 1: group of condemned prisoner's petition the US Supreme Court for
35:31
Speaker 1: a writ of certieri and stays of their executions, as
35:34
Speaker 1: evidenced by other botched executions in Ohio and Arizona. The
35:37
Speaker 1: petitioners argued that the medazolam would not numb the pain
35:41
Speaker 1: that would be caused by the other two drugs, so
35:44
Speaker 1: on January fifteenth, the lead petitioner, Charles Warner, was denied
35:49
Speaker 1: a stay and executed later that day over the descent
35:53
Speaker 1: of four justices, leaving Richard as the next in line.
35:56
Speaker 3: Sister Helen and a bunch of people were there visiting me.
35:58
Speaker 3: It was the day before excuded. It was funny because
36:02
Speaker 3: Sister Helen came like I seen her head like moving
36:04
Speaker 3: up and down in the crowd, and she gave me
36:07
Speaker 3: the phone and it was the Vatican, and I got
36:08
Speaker 3: talked to the Vatican that day and as soon as
36:11
Speaker 3: I got done. The guards ran everybody out of there
36:14
Speaker 3: to hey, you got an attorney call. So they set
36:16
Speaker 3: me down and gave me the phone, and my attorney said,
36:19
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court just gave you a study, and you
36:22
Speaker 3: are now born to Supreme Court against lethal ingestion.
36:26
Speaker 4: Sister Helen was able to mobilize a lot of people
36:30
Speaker 4: and put some petitions together, and the Supreme Court, while
36:35
Speaker 4: they didn't grant a stay for Charles Warner, based on
36:39
Speaker 4: basically the same information on the lethal injection drug, granted
36:43
Speaker 4: rich a stay, and so he got to stay about
36:45
Speaker 4: twenty four hours in advance of his first execution date
36:48
Speaker 4: to have his case Glossop p Gross go before the
36:51
Speaker 4: United States Supreme.
36:52
Speaker 1: Court, And so there was a whole place on all
36:54
Speaker 1: executions in Oklahoma until a ruling was made on June
36:57
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, twenty fifteen, in the last of the Supreme
37:00
Speaker 1: Court's term. They ruled five to four against Richard and
37:04
Speaker 1: the condemned prisoners, allowing me dazlam as the sedative, and
37:07
Speaker 1: Richard's execution date was set for September fifteenth, twenty fifteen,
37:13
Speaker 1: so thirty five days prior the death ritual began again.
37:17
Speaker 4: They actually move you to a cell that's about four
37:21
Speaker 4: cells away from the actual death chamber, and you're in
37:25
Speaker 4: that cell for a few days, and then they bring
37:27
Speaker 4: you to the third cell, one closer to the death chamber,
37:31
Speaker 4: and they leave you there for a few days, and
37:32
Speaker 4: then they bring you to the second cell, one more
37:35
Speaker 4: step closer to the death chamber, and then they move
37:37
Speaker 4: you to the cell next to the death chamber. And
37:41
Speaker 4: if that's not torture in and of itself, by the
37:43
Speaker 4: time you get to that final thing, you can see
37:46
Speaker 4: the people coming and going from the death chamber. You
37:48
Speaker 4: know what's happening, you know what they're preparing, you know
37:50
Speaker 4: what they're going to do. And Rich was subject to
37:53
Speaker 4: that for a long period of time because we ended
37:58
Speaker 4: up with a stay of execution September fifteenth. He had
38:01
Speaker 4: already been subjected to that, he'd already been brought to
38:03
Speaker 4: that final place. It was two hours in advance of
38:06
Speaker 4: the execution that hit that the second execution was stopped
38:09
Speaker 4: and then they we.
38:10
Speaker 2: Had a two weeks stay so that Rich.
38:12
Speaker 4: Was moved once again, just back to where he had
38:15
Speaker 4: been and to start that whole process over again. So
38:18
Speaker 4: Rich was subjected to this incredible emotional torture. In advance
38:23
Speaker 4: of the third execution date, which was set for September
38:26
Speaker 4: thirtieth of twenty fifteen.
38:28
Speaker 3: I was in a lit room for fifty four straight days,
38:34
Speaker 3: no darkness whatsoever. It's crazy what they put you through.
38:40
Speaker 3: They do mock executions in front of you. And I'm
38:43
Speaker 3: not trying to compare Oklahoma to ISIS, but it's no
38:47
Speaker 3: different than what ISIS does to people. When they pull
38:50
Speaker 3: somebody out, they put a sword to their neck. They
38:52
Speaker 3: actually they're going to chop their head off them and
38:54
Speaker 3: they stop and they say, oh, we're going to wait
38:57
Speaker 3: for another day. Put them back in itself, you know.
39:00
Speaker 3: I mean, they put the guy back in and bring
39:02
Speaker 3: him out the next day and keep doing this. I mean,
39:05
Speaker 3: where do we draw the line at torture, because this
39:08
Speaker 3: is torture. My first date, I got to stay the
39:12
Speaker 3: day before my execution. The second time I got to
39:16
Speaker 3: stay hours before my execution. The third time I got
39:20
Speaker 3: to stay after my execution was supposed to have taken place.
39:24
Speaker 1: And these days came with a lot of work. Don
39:26
Speaker 1: So for the second one. On September fifteenth, few filed
39:29
Speaker 1: motions presenting new evidence, including a July ninety seven psyche
39:32
Speaker 1: evaluation showing Sneed was aware of the charges against him
39:37
Speaker 1: and that he made no mention of Richard, as well
39:39
Speaker 1: as the numerous people Sneed confessed to along the way
39:42
Speaker 1: that he had acted alone and saved his own hide
39:46
Speaker 1: by implicating Richard. But despite all of that, on September
39:49
Speaker 1: twenty eighth, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals voted three
39:52
Speaker 1: to two to proceed with the execution, and the Supreme
39:56
Speaker 1: Court also deny to stay. Then the governor granted a
39:59
Speaker 1: stay on the thirtieth, citing that Oklahoma, contrary to lethal
40:03
Speaker 1: injection drug protocol, had received potassium acetate, a freaking food preservative,
40:10
Speaker 1: instead of potassium chloride for the cardiac arrest inducing portion
40:15
Speaker 1: of the cocktail. So then Richard got a thirty seven
40:18
Speaker 1: day stay to November sixth, twenty fifteen.
40:21
Speaker 3: And it was interesting when that happened because sister Hillm
40:23
Speaker 3: was outside the prison and she was saying, it's a
40:26
Speaker 3: Richard gloss of preservative, because the drug they were going
40:28
Speaker 3: to use was actually used as a preservative, you know.
40:32
Speaker 3: But I think the scariest thing about that time was
40:35
Speaker 3: when the governor at the time told the first second
40:39
Speaker 3: in command, who was there google it when we'd gotten
40:46
Speaker 3: to a point in a society where we google how
40:49
Speaker 3: to execute people? Or is it okay to certain drugs
40:52
Speaker 3: that execute people? That should just end the destiny by itself.
40:58
Speaker 1: It makes no sense to me at all that we
41:02
Speaker 1: entrust so many deeply flawed humans with the machinery of death,
41:07
Speaker 1: But nevertheless, here we are. So on October first, twenty fifteen,
41:13
Speaker 1: Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Prewitt asked the Court of Criminal
41:16
Speaker 1: Appeals to issue an indepfinite stay of all executions, citing
41:20
Speaker 1: the acquisition of the wrong drugs. Then, on October eighth,
41:24
Speaker 1: it was revealed that Charles Warner had been killed using
41:27
Speaker 1: potassium acetate, the food preservative, contrary to protocol DAG. Prewitt
41:35
Speaker 1: then ordered a multi county grand jury investigation, and this
41:39
Speaker 1: put a hold on executions in Oklahoma. And with this moratorium,
41:45
Speaker 1: the famous documentarian Joe Burlinger, who made Paradise Lost about
41:50
Speaker 1: the West Memphis Three, got involved to help uncover more
41:53
Speaker 1: evidence and make the incredibly powerful docuseries Killing Richard Glossip
41:58
Speaker 1: that we've been referencing.
42:01
Speaker 5: I'm Joe Berlinger, and I guess they've been talking about
42:04
Speaker 5: my docuseries killing Richard Glossop. I mean, this case, to
42:08
Speaker 5: me is the very definition of why there should be
42:10
Speaker 5: no death penalty. It just demonstrates how easily innocent people
42:14
Speaker 5: can be put to death. This was a spontaneous act
42:17
Speaker 5: of a opportunistic robbery that went awry, and all the
42:21
Speaker 5: evidence suggests that, and no evidence points to Richard Glossop,
42:26
Speaker 5: even the fact that when they found money on each
42:29
Speaker 5: of them, the fact that there was blood on the
42:32
Speaker 5: two thousand dollars that Sneed had in his pocket and
42:35
Speaker 5: Richard's money had no blood on it. Here, you have
42:38
Speaker 5: a murder for higher plot. And yet he himself, justin
42:42
Speaker 5: Snead says in his original statement, and he said it
42:46
Speaker 5: again to me when I interviewed him, that he never
42:48
Speaker 5: really intended to kill Barry Bantrees. He just was hoping
42:52
Speaker 5: to kind of immobilize him. Well, then, how is it
42:55
Speaker 5: a murder for higher plot? I mean, that very basic
42:58
Speaker 5: fact makes it impossible to believe his story.
43:04
Speaker 1: So the one thing that Sneed has been consistent about
43:08
Speaker 1: is that he never meant to kill Barry Van Tries, So,
43:12
Speaker 1: through his own repeated admissions, he denies Rich's involvement rich
43:18
Speaker 1: was supposed to have ordered him, remember, according to the state,
43:21
Speaker 1: to rob and kill Barry. But if he never intended
43:24
Speaker 1: to kill Barry, then he could not have been operating
43:28
Speaker 1: under Rich's authority. Therefore there was no murder for higher plot.
43:34
Speaker 1: Richard could never have been involved. I mean, which, justin Snead,
43:38
Speaker 1: are we supposed to believe the Sneed who says Richard
43:41
Speaker 1: told me to do it, so I had to do it,
43:44
Speaker 1: or the Sneed who never intended to kill Barry Van
43:47
Speaker 1: tries despite the alleged quote unquote orders of Richard classip
43:51
Speaker 1: he can't be both. Not that any of this matters
43:56
Speaker 1: to our legal processes, as actual innocence does not entitle
44:00
Speaker 1: one to relief according to the United States Supreme Court.
44:04
Speaker 1: So don where do we stand now?
44:08
Speaker 4: So we've got several new witnesses, people that nobody has
44:11
Speaker 4: ever heard. We know the story now we heard it
44:13
Speaker 4: from Sneed's mouth through at least two or three witnesses.
44:18
Speaker 4: We know what happened in this case, and we know
44:20
Speaker 4: that rich didn't have anything to do with this murder
44:23
Speaker 4: at all. And so we are ready to go to
44:27
Speaker 4: the Pardon and Parole Board with this new information. We
44:30
Speaker 4: would go to court, but we've already been to court
44:33
Speaker 4: in twenty fifteen. We lost there. There are procedural bars
44:37
Speaker 4: that are in place to keep us from even getting
44:41
Speaker 4: a chance to fairly litigate this innocence again. So right
44:46
Speaker 4: now the state of Oklahoma is set to once again
44:49
Speaker 4: begin the process of killing people. There is an end
44:53
Speaker 4: to the current lawsuit that's going on with Rich's name
44:58
Speaker 4: on it.
44:58
Speaker 2: Again.
44:58
Speaker 4: It's the successor of a glass be gross And once
45:02
Speaker 4: the court makes a ruling on the protocol that they
45:05
Speaker 4: know how to kill somebody with whatever drug they use,
45:08
Speaker 4: they're going to go ahead and begin to set dates
45:11
Speaker 4: once again. And we don't know if Rich will be first.
45:13
Speaker 4: He doesn't have to be first, but he was last up.
45:15
Speaker 4: It's entirely possible that he will be the first one
45:19
Speaker 4: set for execution, and that could take place sometime in
45:23
Speaker 4: the late summer.
45:24
Speaker 3: The worst case scenario, they could set a date on
45:27
Speaker 3: July first.
45:31
Speaker 1: I don't even know what to say anymore. His fate
45:34
Speaker 1: has essentially been determined, barring action from the parle board
45:38
Speaker 1: and the executive branch, but his legal fate has been
45:42
Speaker 1: sealed because of technical considerations.
45:46
Speaker 4: In twenty fifteen, we had two judges who based upon
45:49
Speaker 4: the evidence we had then, which is a shadow of
45:52
Speaker 4: the evidence that we have now at that point in time,
45:55
Speaker 4: two judges said we want to give this guy hearing
45:57
Speaker 4: on his innocence claim, but three judges said we won't
46:00
Speaker 4: simply because of finality of judgment. That was their whole point.
46:05
Speaker 4: That's the Court's point is we can't let this go
46:08
Speaker 4: on forever. We're going to stop it. Like you said,
46:12
Speaker 4: innocence doesn't matter.
46:13
Speaker 2: That's the legal posture that we face today.
46:18
Speaker 1: Right that awful decision was Herrera versus Collins in nineteen
46:22
Speaker 1: ninety three, where the Supreme Court said what I just said,
46:25
Speaker 1: evidence of innocence is not enough to stop the wheels
46:28
Speaker 1: of justice from turning and in this case, turning right
46:30
Speaker 1: into a state sponsored murder of an innocent man named
46:33
Speaker 1: Richard Class.
46:34
Speaker 3: I'm asking everybody to go to say Richard Blosso dot com,
46:38
Speaker 3: to sign the petitions that we have, but to also
46:41
Speaker 3: participate in everything that we're doing to try to bring
46:44
Speaker 3: justice reforms so that we can prevent this from happening
46:46
Speaker 3: to other people. This isn't always about one person, and
46:50
Speaker 3: that's what I've always tried to make clear.
46:51
Speaker 2: The people.
46:52
Speaker 3: This is about many innocent people who are facing what
46:55
Speaker 3: I'm facing, and I don't want them to face it.
46:57
Speaker 3: I don't want them to go through what I went through.
46:59
Speaker 3: We got to stand up as a society. We have
47:03
Speaker 3: to stand up as some people. We have to stand
47:04
Speaker 3: up and say, hey, we're not going to tolerate this anymore.
47:08
Speaker 3: We gotta change this. We got to prevent in executed,
47:12
Speaker 3: and we got to open people's eyes to why this
47:15
Speaker 3: is such a bornbaric practice and why it should no
47:18
Speaker 3: longer take place.
47:19
Speaker 1: Go to save Richard glossip dot com. We'll also have
47:23
Speaker 1: links in the bio for action steps that you can take,
47:27
Speaker 1: and you know, with that, I want to turn it
47:30
Speaker 1: over to YouTube. Guys, thank you for being here with
47:34
Speaker 1: us today and spreading the word about this awful injustice.
47:40
Speaker 1: And well, now we turn to what we call closing arguments.
47:43
Speaker 1: This is a section of the show where I turned
47:45
Speaker 1: my microphone off, take back of my chair, leave my
47:48
Speaker 1: headphones on, close my eyes, and just listen to whatever
47:53
Speaker 1: you have to say that we may have left out,
47:55
Speaker 1: or anything you want to share with our audience. So, Richard,
47:58
Speaker 1: we're going to save you for last, and let don
48:01
Speaker 1: go first. And again, Richard, I just want you to
48:04
Speaker 1: know we're all out here thinking about you. So many
48:08
Speaker 1: people are praying for you, and we hope to see
48:11
Speaker 1: you free before too long. Over to you, Don.
48:16
Speaker 4: Well, thank you, Jason. I really appreciate you taking the
48:19
Speaker 4: time to shine a light on this terrible case and
48:22
Speaker 4: this terrible injustice that we are hoping to stop with
48:26
Speaker 4: a hearing.
48:27
Speaker 2: Later this year.
48:28
Speaker 4: Richard Glossop a simple guy who was in love with
48:32
Speaker 4: a young woman. Richard loved his job at the best
48:35
Speaker 4: budget in loved Barry Van Trees. They had a great relationship.
48:38
Speaker 4: Rich never took any money from Barry van Trees, and
48:41
Speaker 4: Verry respected Rich. And a terrible murder took place that
48:45
Speaker 4: rich did not have anything at all to do with,
48:48
Speaker 4: and the wheels of justice began to turn in Oklahoma
48:53
Speaker 4: City the way that they did back in those days
48:55
Speaker 4: with Bob Macy, and those wheels just simply ran over
48:59
Speaker 4: rich Blossop. He was a victim of very very poor lawyering,
49:05
Speaker 4: of over aggressive police work, of over aggressive prosecutors who
49:09
Speaker 4: only cared about one thing, and that was getting a
49:12
Speaker 4: conviction and getting a death sentence. Because that was the
49:15
Speaker 4: culture of Oklahoma City. At the time, there was a
49:18
Speaker 4: series of three letters to the current District Attorney, David Prater.
49:24
Speaker 4: We have requested a lot of substantive information that we
49:29
Speaker 4: believe would prove that rich Glossop had nothing to do
49:32
Speaker 4: with this, and we have received no answers. We continue
49:37
Speaker 4: to wait for David Prater. So at this point in time,
49:39
Speaker 4: we're preparing for a clemency hearing that we know will
49:42
Speaker 4: take place later this year, and we are hoping that
49:45
Speaker 4: people will go to say Richard Glossop dot com. You
49:49
Speaker 4: can find a petition there to the governor and the
49:51
Speaker 4: Partner Parole Board, letting those people know that this is wrong,
49:56
Speaker 4: what's happening, and that the only way to write it
49:58
Speaker 4: is to grant rich clemency and allow us to get
50:01
Speaker 4: back into court again.
50:02
Speaker 2: What were you, Rich?
50:04
Speaker 3: You know, when I walked in and I took that
50:06
Speaker 3: first step on agent on death row, I said that
50:11
Speaker 3: I have two choices. I can make peace with death
50:14
Speaker 3: or I can let it destroy me. And so I
50:16
Speaker 3: made peace with death right then and there, and I
50:19
Speaker 3: just said, I'm not going to let it destroy me.
50:21
Speaker 3: I'm going to be the same person I was and
50:23
Speaker 3: I am to this day. I sing in my cell
50:26
Speaker 3: out loud, I laughed. I dance around and guards are
50:30
Speaker 3: always freaking out because I'm the way that I am.
50:32
Speaker 3: And I told them, I said, you know, I was
50:33
Speaker 3: a happy guy my whole life, and I'm not going
50:36
Speaker 3: to let this change who I am because we only
50:39
Speaker 3: have one life to live and it's a gift. And
50:43
Speaker 3: I'm going to celebrate life no matter where the hell
50:45
Speaker 3: I'm at, even in this hole, I'm going to celebrate life.
50:49
Speaker 3: I've heard so many stories about people who lost it
50:51
Speaker 3: down on atunit, and I've seen it for myself. I've
50:54
Speaker 3: witnessed it myself, and there are a lot of people
50:56
Speaker 3: with serious mental health issues because you're isolated for years
51:00
Speaker 3: and years and years, and it's yeah, it's hard. And thankfully,
51:06
Speaker 3: you know, I had my art. I've written songs. I've
51:10
Speaker 3: written so many poems. I've written a book which I
51:12
Speaker 3: can't wait to get get out there to people because
51:14
Speaker 3: it's a book of hope. It's a book of showing
51:16
Speaker 3: people that you do have more strengthen you know, and
51:20
Speaker 3: you can take your courage and you can move forward
51:22
Speaker 3: and you can have hope at the end. And I
51:24
Speaker 3: describe the three execution attempt I describe everything because I
51:27
Speaker 3: want people to know, no matter how bad things get,
51:31
Speaker 3: there is always something good that will come from the
51:34
Speaker 3: worst situations you face in life. You just got to
51:38
Speaker 3: fight for it and you've got to make sure it happens.
51:41
Speaker 3: So it's we're in a fight. We're in a big
51:44
Speaker 3: fight with legislators and people in the state of Oklahoma
51:47
Speaker 3: who are standing up saying we need to prevent this,
51:50
Speaker 3: and hopefully we can succeed because I do have a
51:53
Speaker 3: lot more like lift and I do have a lot
51:55
Speaker 3: more battle to raise again, the destinility. Look at what's
52:00
Speaker 3: happening here in Oklahoma, one of the biggest Republican states
52:03
Speaker 3: in the country, and you have Republicans now standing up
52:06
Speaker 3: saying we're not going to tolerate this anymore. We're not
52:09
Speaker 3: going to kill innocent people. I'm proud of Legislator mcdogle
52:14
Speaker 3: and Legislator Humphrey, and you know, even the local businessman
52:18
Speaker 3: justin Jackson. I'm really proud of these people because they're
52:21
Speaker 3: diehard conservative and yet they're standing up for innocence because
52:25
Speaker 3: it's not a left thing and it's not a right thing.
52:27
Speaker 3: It's an innocent thing. And we've got to stop using
52:31
Speaker 3: politics in justice reform. We all want the right things.
52:35
Speaker 3: If we don't, then you shouldn't be an office. We
52:38
Speaker 3: all want fair, we all want justice, and that's why
52:40
Speaker 3: I've always said that take the blindfold off of Lady Justice,
52:43
Speaker 3: because that's one of the days that's always weirded me
52:45
Speaker 3: out over the years, because you're saying, well, she's bye
52:49
Speaker 3: sold fold us so she can be fair. How can
52:50
Speaker 3: you be fair if you can't see what's going on.
52:54
Speaker 3: So take the by and hold off the letters, see
52:56
Speaker 3: what's going on, and she'll see how fair justice really
52:58
Speaker 3: is in that country.
53:06
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
53:09
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence projects and go to the
53:12
Speaker 1: link in our bio to see how you can help.
53:15
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff
53:18
Speaker 1: Cliburn and Kevin Warnis. The music on the show, as always,
53:22
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
53:25
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
53:29
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
53:33
Speaker 1: Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
53:36
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company. Number one,