[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., VA., OKLA.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 30



PENNSYLVANIA:

7 convicts facing death penalty in Lehigh Valley cases


George Hitcho Jr. appealed the Northampton County jury's verdict that he be put 
to death for shooting Patrolman Robert A. Lasso in the back of the head while 
Lasso was being attacked by Hitcho's dogs. Lasso was preparing to use a stun 
gun on the animals when Hitcho blasted him with a 12-gauge shotgun.

In Georgia, officials executed a woman for the 1st time in 70 years. Kelly 
Renee Gissendaner was pronounced dead at 12:21 a.m. Wednesday. Gissendaner had 
been sentenced to death for conspiring with a lover to killer her husband in 
1997.

Hitcho and 6 other people from the Lehigh and Northampton counties face death 
sentences in Pennsylvania.

Junius Bruno 45, was sentenced to death in March 2007 in the Lehigh County 
Court of Common Pleas. Bruno killed 2 men during a botched robbery inside an 
Allentown apartment in 2003.

George Ivan Lopez 56, and Edwin R. Romero 51, were sentenced to death in April 
1996 in the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas. The pair conspired with 2 
other men to rob an Allentown landlord when he came to collect rent. They hit 
David Bolansky over the head, hogtied him, strangled him to death with a towel, 
wrapped his body in bedding and dumped him in a wooded area.

Harvey M. Robinson 40, was sentenced to death in November 1994 in the Lehigh 
County Court of Common Pleas. Robinson is believed to be Allentown's 1st serial 
killer. He raped and murdered 3 women. His 4th victim escaped before being 
killed. When he returned to her home to kill her, police were waiting and 
gunshots were exchanged. He was later arrested at an area hospital.

Raymond Solano, 36, was sentenced to death in May 2003 in the Lehigh County 
Court of Common Pleas. Solano shot another man 6 times on an Allentown 
basketball court in 2001 and kept firing as he and dozens of players and 
onlookers fled.

Michael Ballard, 42, was sentenced to death in May 2011 in the Northampton 
County Court of Common Pleas. Ballard stabbed his ex-girlfriend, her father, 
grandfather and neighbor to death in 2010.

There are 11 death row inmates from Berks County, 3 from Monroe, 3 from 
Schuylkill, 6 from Bucks, 7 from Montgomery and none from Carbon.

(source: Morning Call)






VIRGINIA:

Virginia inmate challenges 'secret' lethal injection drugs in attempt to halt 
execution


Attorneys for a convicted serial killer facing the death penalty in Virginia 
moved Wednesday to halt the 49-year-old's execution by challenging the state's 
use of lethal injection drugs that it obtained from Texas.

The state plans to execute Alfredo Prieto on Thursday after Democratic Gov. 
Terry McAuliffe rejected an attempt earlier this week to delay his death 
sentence. The El Salvador native was on death row in California for raping and 
murdering a 15-year-old girl when DNA evidence linked him to the 1988 slaying 
of a young couple in Virginia. Authorities say he has been linked to several 
other murders in both states but he was never charged because he had already 
been sentenced to death.

Prieto's attorneys have asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District 
of Virginia to stay the execution until officials disclose more information 
about the pentobarbital it intends to use - including the name of the supplier, 
tests confirming its sterility and potency and documents showing that the drugs 
were properly handled, transported and stored.

Texas allows prison officials to shield where they get execution drugs and 
Prieto's attorneys say Virginia officials have not provided that information.

The Associated Press filed a public records request for the names of the 
manufacturers and the suppliers of the drugs, but the documents show only that 
the drugs were provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Texas prisons spokesman Jason Clark told AP last week that the three vials of 
pentobarbital given to Virginia were legally purchased from a compounding 
pharmacy, which he declined to name. Virginia will substitute the pentobarbital 
for midazolam that it intended to use because its supply of that sedative 
expires Wednesday.

Prieto's attorneys, Rob Lee and Elizabeth Peiffer, said the lack of information 
about the drugs puts the state at risk of carrying out a cruel and painful 
execution.

It is unknown whether Virginia or Texas "know any pertinent information about 
the compounding pharmacy, including its ability to make a sterile injectable 
drug, its track record with regard to faulty drugs and adverse incidents, or 
even the source of the raw ingredients it uses," they said in a statement. If 
Virginia does possess this information, "it is keeping it secret. This lack of 
transparency prevents the courts from assessing the constitutionality of VDOC's 
execution procedure."

A spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Corrections didn't immediately 
respond to a request for comment.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Richard Vorhis said in a letter to Peiffer on 
Tuesday that the drugs were legally acquired, tested and transported in an 
appropriate manner. He noted that Texas has successfully used the same compound 
in 24 executions over the past 2 years with no problems.

Pentobarbital is the 1st of 3 drugs that the state intends to use Thursday.

Mylan, the manufacturer of the rocuronium bromide - another drug that will be 
used - said the company sent several letters to Virginia officials when it 
learned about the drug's possible use and then demanded that the state return 
the product when it received no response.

Spokeswoman Nina Devlin said in a statement that the company is contractually 
restricting its distributors from distributing Mylan products, including 
rocuronium bromide, for use in lethal injection or for any other use outside of 
the approved labeling or applicable standards of care.

Prieto's attorneys in Virginia and California have also both asked the U.S. 
Supreme Court to stay his execution so that they can prove that he's 
intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for the death penalty. A 
federal appeals court in Virginia upheld his death sentence in June, saying 
that he failed to prove that no reasonable juror would find him eligible for 
execution and that "absent some new 'smoking gun,'" evidence of his ability to 
handle everyday tasks was "at best inconclusive."

(source: Associated Press)






OKLAHOMA----impending execution

Oklahoma Death Row Inmate's Lawyer Speaks Out Hours Before His Execution


This afternoon, Oklahoma is slated to execute death row inmate Richard Glossip 
after a protracted legal battle. Glossip, whose case has received widespread 
media attention, was spared just hours before the state's scheduled execution 
on September 16 after his lawyers claimed they had new evidence proving his 
innocence.

On Monday, the Oklahoma Court of Appeals narrowly declined to halt Glossip's 
execution. In a 3-2 decision, the court rejected Glossip's newest request for 
an new hearing and an emergency stay of execution, ruling that the new evidence 
presented by Glossip's attorneys "merely expands" on theories that were raised 
in his earlier appeals.

The court was sharply divided. In dissenting opinions, the two judges who voted 
in stay of the execution wrote that Glossip's original trial was "deeply 
flawed" and argued that "the State has no interest in executing an actually 
innocent man."

Glossip was convicted of ordering the grisly 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, 
the owner of a motel where Glossip worked. Prosecutors argued that Glossip 
commissioned Justin Sneed, who also worked at the motel, to kill Van Treese 
because Glossip was embezzling money from the motel and was concerned Van 
Treese would find out. Sneed confessed to beating Van Treese to death with a 
baseball bat and was sentenced to life in prison.

Glossip's attorneys said that Sneed implicated Glossip in exchange for a deal 
to receive life in prison without parole instead of the death penalty. To date, 
there is no physical evidence linking Glossip to the crime.

Glossip's attorneys presented 3 affidavits as new evidence after the stay was 
granted on September 16. One was from Richard Barrett, Sneed's former drug 
dealer, who claimed that Sneed was a methamphetamine addict who stole to 
sustain his habit and that Glossip was a "good hearted guy" who did not appear 
to "know anything about Justin Sneed stealing from motel rooms or cars in the 
motel parking lots or the businesses nearby."

A 2nd affidavit was from Michael Scott, an inmate at the facility where Justin 
Sneed was inncarcerated in 2006. Scott testified that he overheard Sneed 
bragging about framing Glossip. "Among the inmates, it was common knowledge 
that Justin Sneed lied and sold Richard Glossip up the river," Scott said.

The 3rd affidavit came from Joseph Tapley, who shared a cell with Sneed in 1997 
at the Oklahoma County Jail. Tapley said that Sneed told him about the crime 
but did not mention Glossip.

Glossip's execution is Oklahoma's 1st since the U.S. Supreme Court in June 
upheld the state's controversial lethal injection drug formula. Glossip, the 
lead plaintiff in the case, challenged the use of the sedative drug midazolam 
in executions, arguing that it risked causing inmates excruciating pain.

ThinkProgress spoke with one of Glossip's attorneys, Don Knight, shortly before 
Glossip's scheduled execution. Knight talked about Glossip's reaction to 
Monday's ruling, next steps for the case, and the significance of the case for 
proponents and detractors of the death penalty.

THINKPROGRESS: What was your reaction when you found out that Oklahoma Court of 
Appeals rejected Glossip's request for a stay? Were you anticipating that 
result?

KNIGHT: Well ... I don't ever want to pre-judge what any judge or jury does. 
So, I'm always prepared for anything. Honestly we feel like we have given them 
enough information to show that again, if those witnesses are to be believed, 
we've got a pretty good chance to show that Richard Glossip is innocent. I 
think that there is no way that a jury with all of the information that we now 
have finds him guilty. So I think that we've given them enough information. I 
was shocked and I was sad. No, I can't say I was shocked. Disappointed and sad 
that the court ruled the way that it did.

What are the next steps?

We just submitted a document to [Governor Mary Fallin] asking her to grant us a 
60 day stay. Another one. We're filing in the United States Supreme Court this 
afternoon. We also filed a request with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals 
for a rehearing. We will continue to do everything we possibly can. Whatever 
those steps may be, will be determined after each of these other steps have 
been taken and completed. I can't tell you what's going to happen in the 
future.

And how is Richard Glossip taking the news after the announcement yesterday?

It's tough. He's struggling greatly, of course. Trying to keep positive somehow 
in the face of what looks like a very bad situation that's coming. So, he's 
trying real hard to stay positive.

This case has gotten so much attention. Is this level of attention 
unprecedented compared to other cases you have worked on? Has this case 
received more attention than others?

I think this case has received a lot more attention than almost any other case. 
I think it has resulted in a lot of the information that we have being able to 
come forward, because people hear about it on the press and then they have 
information and then they come forward. I wish everybody, I wish every single 
defendant who is at Richard Glossip's stage had this kind of opportunity for 
this much attention to be drawn to their case. And I'm sad that they don't.

Do you think generally the response is indicative of shifting attitudes about 
the death penalty?

I hope so. I honestly believe that ... I would be hard-pressed to believe that 
any less than 90 % of people don't want to kill an innocent man. I'm sure that 
there are people out there who take some kind of perverse joy in doing so, but 
we only asked for an opportunity to show that he was innocent. That's all we 
asked for. Because I don't believe anybody wants to kill an innocent man. So I 
don't know about the attitudes about the death penalty, but I don't think 
anybody wants to kill an innocent man.

Do you think that this case [is a not a good case] for proponents of the death 
penalty?

I think it's a very bad case for them. I think that this is a case that is 
going to help end the death penalty because we know before we killed him that 
he's innocent. A lot of cases you find out afterward, the DNA, oops, gee we 
made a mistake on that one. Or like Cameron Todd Willingham down in Texas when 
the forensic evidence came out afterward and changed the nature of the case, 
but what do we know now beforehand? We know right now today that there is 
probably a pretty darn good chance that this guy's innocent if he went to trial 
tomorrow. And yet, we're going to kill him. And that's going to do a lot of 
damage I think to the death penalty as a whole.

Is there anything else you would like to add? Anything else you would like 
people to know?

Write, email. Do anything you possibly can to get peoples attention. Make this 
a big deal. Don't let this happen in the shadows. Just don't let it happen in 
the shadows. That's all.

(source: thinkprogress.org)

**********

"The Jury Never Heard It": Richard Glossip to Be Executed in Oklahoma Today 
Despite New Evidence


Death row prisoner Richard Glossip is slated to be executed this afternoon. An 
Oklahoma court recently rejected a request for a new hearing in the case. In 
1997, Glossip was working as a manager at the Best Budget Inn in Oklahoma City 
when his boss, Barry Van Treese, was murdered. A maintenance worker, Justin 
Sneed, admitted he beat Van Treese to death with a baseball bat, but claimed 
Glossip offered him money and job opportunities for the killing. The case 
rested almost solely on Sneed's claims. No physical evidence ever tied Glossip 
to the crime. In recent months, 2 men who served time in jail with Sneed have 
come forward saying Sneed framed Glossip to avoid the death penalty himself. On 
Monday, the court ruled this evidence "merely builds upon evidence previously 
presented to the court," and rejected a stay of execution. More than 240,000 
people have signed a petition to spare Glossip's life. We're joined on the 
phone by 2 guests: Don Knight, 1 of the pro bono attorneys representing death 
row inmate Richard Glossip, and Sister Helen Prejean, one of the world's most 
well-known anti-death-penalty activists. As a Catholic nun, she began her 
prison ministry over 30 years ago. She is the author of the best-selling book, 
"Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty."

JUAN GONZALEZ: Death row prisoner Richard Glossip is slated to be executed this 
afternoon. An Oklahoma court recently rejected a request for a new hearing in 
the case. In 1997, Glossip was working as a manager at the Best Budget Inn in 
Oklahoma City when his boss, Barry Van Treese, was murdered. A maintenance 
worker, Justin Sneed, admitted he beat Van Treese to death with a baseball bat, 
but claimed Glossip offered him money and job opportunities for the killing. 
The case rested almost solely on Sneed's claims. No physical evidence ever tied 
Glossip to the crime.

In recent months, 2 men who served time in jail with Sneed have come forward 
saying Sneed framed Glossip to avoid the death penalty himself. On Monday, the 
court ruled this evidence, quote, "merely builds upon evidence previously 
presented to the court," and it rejected a stay of execution. More than 240,000 
people have signed a petition to spare Glossip's life.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we're joined on the telephone by 2 guests: Don Knight, 
one of the pro bono attorneys representing death row prisoner Richard Glossip, 
and Sister Helen Prejean, one of the world's most well-known anti-death-penalty 
activists. As a Catholic nun, she began her prison ministry over 30 years ago. 
She's the author of the best-selling book, Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness 
Account of the Death Penalty.

Don Knight, let's start with you. You're both in Oklahoma about to head over to 
the prison, where Richard Glossip is right now scheduled to die 3:00 p.m. 
Oklahoma time. Can you tell us what the latest is, what you have filed to try 
to prevent his execution and why you are contending he's an innocent man?

DON KNIGHT: Well, thank you, Amy and Juan, for having us on your program this 
morning. This is obviously a very, very important issue for everyone today.

We have filed 2 matters that are pending right now. One is with the governor 
here, Mary Fallin. We have once again asked her for a 60-day stay of execution, 
so that we can have an opportunity to get back in front of the clemency board 
and ask once again for clemency for Richard Glossip, with our new evidence as 
the basis for the clemency claim.

The second issue is pending in front of the United States Supreme Court this 
morning on a writ asking the court to grant a stay and give us an opportunity 
for a hearing. The basis for our claim in front of the Supreme Court is, first 
off, that Richard Glossip is innocent. There just doesn't seem to be any doubt, 
and all of the doubt that has ever been in this case seems to be disappearing 
very quickly, because we have really uncovered evidence that Justin Sneed is 
just simply categorically unreliable. He remains so today. In a recent 
interview that he gave, he lied several times in the interview, made up new 
facts just simply to fit whatever narrative he had going on that particular 
day. This was an interview with a woman reporter from a magazine called The 
Frontier. But his testimony has been pretty unreliable ever since the first 
time he ever opened his mouth with the police. He told 4 different stories just 
in 1 interview way back in 1997. So our basis is the fact that the Eighth 
Amendment to the Constitution requires reliability and fairness in capital 
cases. And in this particular case, there is simply no reliability. And if he 
is to be executed today, there is simply no fairness in the Eighth Amendment.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Don Knight, what are the key - the key aspects of the new 
evidence that you are claiming needs to be reviewed?

DON KNIGHT: Well, we have uncovered information, and this is new evidence from 
three individuals. The first one, just sort of in time, is the man who was 
selling Justin Sneed drugs. Justin Sneed was portrayed as being somebody who 
was simply a drifter, sort of a loner, but he didn't have a real drug problem, 
he just occasionally used drugs, kind of a lazy guy hanging around the motel, 
and he was somehow subject to the whims of Mr. Glossip, who had some control 
over him. The drug dealer will testify, actually, that Justin Sneed was your 
basic meth head. He was constantly using the drug, using it intravenously, 
stealing from cars, stealing from motel rooms. And that's exactly what happened 
here. He went into the motel room and beat Barry Van Treese to death in an 
attempt to get his car key so that he could take money from the car. He did not 
need to be, nor was he directed to do so by Richard Glossip.

The 2nd new evidence, new witness that we found, was a man who spent time with 
Justin Sneed shortly after Justin Sneed was arrested in 1997. He was his 
cellmate in the county jail. And that individual will testify that Mr. Sneed 
told him all about the crime on many occasions and never once mentioned that it 
was a murder for hire, never once mentioned Richard Glossip's name. He just 
basically said he did for the money, which is of course what we know that he 
now did.

The 3rd witness will testify that after the second trial, while he was in the 
prison with Mr. Sneed, he overheard Mr. Sneed telling a very close friend of 
Mr. Sneed, in fact, laughing about the fact that he had set Richard Glossip up 
so that Sneed could get a life sentence and Glossip was going to die.

AMY GOODMAN: I'd like to play a short clip from the interrogation video of the 
key witness against Richard Glossip, Justin Sneed. The jury was not shown the 
video. The video was taken directly after his arrest for the murder of Barry 
Van Treese. Sneed talks about the amount of money he received and how it was 
divided. Listen carefully, as the audio quality isn't very good.

JUSTIN SNEED: And then we went and got the money out of the car, and went and 
took it back to my room, so I guess like his girlfriend wouldn't know nothing 
or nothing like that. And we split the money.

INTERROGATOR: How much did - money did you get?

JUSTIN SNEED: Uh, like about $1,900. I mean, he told me that the guy was 
sitting on like $7,000, but it only come out to being a little less than 5, I 
think.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Justin Sneed, 19 years old at the time, being 
interrogated for the murder of Barry Van Treese. Now, last year, Justin Sneed's 
daughter, O'Ryan Justine Sneed, wrote a letter to the Oklahoma Pardon and 
Parole Board seeking clemency for Glossip and asserting his innocence. She also 
said her father had spoken to her of recanting his testimony. She wrote, "I 
strongly believe [Glossip] is an innocent man sitting on death row. ... For a 
couple of years now, my father has been talking to me about recanting his 
original testimony. But has been afraid to act upon it, in fear of being 
charged with the Death Penalty ... His fear of recanting, but guilt about not 
doing so, makes it obvious that information he is sitting on would exonerate 
Mr. Glossip." So, this whole issue of this teenager who was charged, at the 
time being told by the police detectives that he would not be put to death if 
he implicated Glossip, is that right?

DON KNIGHT: That's basically exactly what happened here, Amy. You know, they 
didn't come right out and use those terms, but everything that they said 
basically pointed to him making sure that he implicated Glossip. The name 
Richard Glossip was brought up by the police, driven home by the police. And 
after Mr. Sneed gave a couple of versions that included Mr. Glossip and the 
police liked the one, the final one that he gave, they told him that he had 
basically helped himself out a great deal. We know from the first witness that 
we have found, after this matter took place, the one when he was in county 
jail, that witness told us that Justin Sneed was terrified of the death 
penalty, and he would do anything to get out of the death penalty. And it 
appears that that's exactly what he's done.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And have you been able to talk to Glossip in the last - in the 
last day or 2? Give us a sense of his state of mind right now.

DON KNIGHT: I know that Sister Helen is on the line with us, and I think she's 
spoken to him more recently than I have, and I think I'll turn it over to her, 
if that's OK with you.

JUAN GONZALEZ: That's fine. Sister Helen Prejean?

SISTER HELEN PREJEAN: Yes, I've spoken to Richard twice yesterday. And Richard 
is in this place. See, he's come close to death 3 times, and each time he came 
through unscathed. And his big question to me always is, "Sister Helen, what do 
you think is going to happen?" And up to now, to this point, I just said, "You 
are not going to die, Richard. And look at all the forces being assembled for 
you, all the people speaking for you, all the support." But recently when we 
talked, I knew that I had to say to him, "Richard, you're like in the 
whitewater rapids right now in your boat, and the waterfall is right there. You 
can hear it. And I'm praying for you, and you've got to position yourself to 
either go over the waterfall, which means the state is actually going to kill 
you for this, or to live." And as he made in his own statement, which was read 
on the Dr. Phil show by Susan Sarandon, "I don't want to be a martyr, and I 
don't want to die, but if in fact this attention to my case and all that could 
go wrong in this and that you could actually put an innocent man to death, if 
it could bring attention in this country to all the people going through this 
and it could help end the death penalty for everyone, then my life will not be 
in vain." These are not just words he says off the top of his head. It's really 
within his being. And I think Richard is poised, at this point, to live or die.

I will hardly be able to believe it if he dies. The system in our criminal 
justice system, and particularly the administration of the death penalty, is so 
corrupt, it is so messed up. And just what Don Knight was just saying about 
Justin Sneed being terrified of death, that's a tactic prosecutors use all the 
time to get people to confess or to buy their version of the story. And the 
reason that Richard Glossip is even facing death today at 3:00 is because the 
prosecutor, Bob Macy, got 54 death penalties. Every time he did, he cut a notch 
on his belt. And Richard had miserable defense. He almost had no defense. And 
there was no way investigation would be done. These witnesses that Don Knight 
and his stalwart team have cobbled together now, it was not done. The jury 
never heard it. So the jury only bought the version of what had happened from 
the prosecutor. And that's the soil in which this tree produces such terrible 
fruit of people actually going to their death on the word, almost completely, 
of another man who has been shown to be a serious meth addict and who stole all 
the time. You don't need to introduce Richard Glossip to be the mastermind. 
Justin Sneed was going in - sometimes, the drug dealer said, he would bring him 
coins. He stole from vending machines. Sometimes he brought him food stamps, a 
stereo from a car, because he was hooked on drugs. Why introduce Richard into 
the scenario at all, that he had to be the mastermind? And why? Because the 1 
aggravating circumstance the prosecutor used to get the death penalty was 
murder for hire. That qualifies for the death penalty. And Richard Glossip is 
staring down death at 3:00 today because of that. That's how broken this thing 
is.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Sister Helen, you talk about the injustice of the death 
penalty for so many others. Well, this last week, Pope Francis, when he was 
speaking to Congress, called for the abolition of the death penalty. This is 
what he said.

POPE FRANCIS: The Golden Rule also reminds us of our responsibility to protect 
and defend human life at every stage of its development. This conviction has 
led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels the 
global abolition of the death penalty. And I am convinced that this way is the 
best, since every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an 
inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of 
those convicted of crimes. Recently, my brother bishops here in the United 
States renewed their call for the abolition of death penalty. Not only - not 
only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are 
convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension 
of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.

JUAN GONZALEZ: That was Pope Francis speaking to Congress last week. Sister 
Helen Prejean, your sense of the impact of the pope's words and whether this is 
going to have some kind of effect in terms of achieving the abolition of the 
death penalty here in the United States?

SISTER HELEN PREJEAN: Well, a lot of people heard those words - and words that 
speak truth to us and call us to the more noble parts of ourselves, that 
protection of life, not just of innocent life - and that was a big surprise, 
because it was sustained applause when the pope said, you know, "protect life 
at every stage." And I think everybody thought they knew what was coming next, 
and it would have to do with innocent life. But he held up the guilty. He held 
up people who have done terrible crimes, that they have dignity, and that - so 
the global abolition of the death penalty. And so, the words are out there, and 
the words reach some hearts. Some hearts seal off the words and refuse to let 
them come in.

But I knew that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy was sitting there. He's 
the 5th vote on the Supreme Court we need, which could abolish the death 
penalty. And the Richard Glossip case could be the case that just shows exactly 
how broken this thing is. When you let the states, like Oklahoma, be the 
administers of the death penalty, all the politics, all the culture comes in, 
so you get a Bob Macy, and you get people running for political office - off of 
the deaths of people. And so, I can only hope the pope's words, spoken in such 
truth to us, will have an effect on hearts.

AMY GOODMAN: Sister Helen Prejean, can you say what's going to happen today? 
You have walked many men to death row. What will happen when you get in your 
car right now, with Don Knight, and head over to the prison? What is the 
schedule of the day?

SISTER HELEN PREJEAN: We get to the prison around 11:00 or a little bit before 
11:00, because Don and another one of the lawyers are going to go be visiting 
with Richard from 11:00 to 1:00. I, with the other witnesses, will be put into 
a van and brought back to wait in a room, because we are the ones who are going 
to be witnesses for Richard. And they're going to have a coffee pot going. 
They're going to be polite to us. And they're going to say, "Do you need 
anything? Here is everything you need," as the Van Treeses are going to be 
brought to a room to wait. This is the moment of justice they???ve been 
promised.

AMY GOODMAN: The murder victim's family.

SISTER HELEN PREJEAN: The murder victim's family, right. And just the last time 
when Richard got a stay and they brought us back to the van, I looked across 
the way, and there was the Van Treese family being put into a van to be taken 
out of the prison. Look what happens to the victims' families. They wait for 
this moment of justice. And then - and then they're led out: "Sorry, not today. 
You'll get your justice maybe in two weeks." And it's unlike anything I know to 
describe to you.

I know what the lawyers have filed with the Supreme Court. I know of Justice 
Breyer's strong dissent when they did the lethal injection thing on the Glossip 
case. I can only hope that they are persuaded by the arguments and don't just 
fall back behind procedure and say, "This should have been filed much sooner," 
which is what the Court of Criminal Appeals did in Oklahoma: "Procedure bars 
you from raising these issues. We've already looked at these issues," which 
meant they were impervious to look at the new information and the new facts, 
because procedure bars you from looking. I only hope that this court will have 
the heart and conscience to widen it, to see that to kill a human being, 
especially an innocent human being, is cruelty, it is torture, and it is 
against our noblest beliefs.

It's like putting your boat on a wave, and you ride it, to let the time fill up 
as we're waiting, as I'm waiting. They have a bathroom in that place, where you 
can go and have a little privacy. And I plan to retreat to that little place of 
privacy as often as I can.

AMY GOODMAN: Don Knight, let me end with you. Of course, I'm sure many people 
are asking, how are you presenting innocence at the last possible minute?

DON KNIGHT: Well, Justin Sneed is the key to this whole case. He has always 
been the key to this whole case. The truth of the matter is, he was a 
19-year-old, meth-addicted person with a criminal history. He is not the kind 
of person that you would have ever counted on to do anything. If you would have 
asked him to take some money to the bank for you, you would know categorically 
that he would not get that money to the bank, that he would use it for himself. 
He was not a reliable person when he was 19. He is still not reliable, in the 
latest interview that he gave just within the last 2 weeks. It's disgusting, 
really, to think that we are going to - today, maybe - kill a man based upon 
the word of someone that no one would count on under any circumstances. And 
that's what we're facing today, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us. Don Knight, one of 
Richard Glossip's pro bono attorneys, he'll be with Richard Glossip today, has 
also appealed the case to the Supreme Court in this last minute. Sister Helen 
Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, will be accompanying Richard Glossip on 
whatever it is that happens today. And, of course, we'll keep you updated, even 
after this broadcast, at democracynow.org.

(source: democracynow.org)

****************

Richard Glossip and the End of the Death Penalty


If the Supreme Court abolishes the death penalty soon, which Justice Antonin 
Scalia said, last week, that he "wouldn't be surprised" to see, the case of 
Richard Glossip is likely to be a significant point of reference in accounts of 
how it happened.

The state of Oklahoma is scheduled to execute Glossip by lethal injection this 
afternoon. He was sentenced to death for a murder that, the record in the case 
makes clear, he did not commit. He had never been arrested before. He had no 
history of violence. His conviction was based on the testimony of the murderer, 
a man named Justin Sneed, who confessed to using a baseball bat to bludgeon the 
victim to death. Sneed claimed that Glossip had pressed him to commit the 
murder and, in exchange for his testimony against Glossip, which was coaxed by 
a police interrogator, he got a sentence of life in prison rather than death.

"I'm trying to stop them from killing me by any method," Glossip told The 
Intercept this summer, "because of the fact that I'm innocent."

Glossip was twice convicted and sentenced to execution. The Oklahoma Court of 
Criminal Appeals overturned the first conviction, holding that his lawyer's 
"conduct was so ineffective that we have no confidence that a reliable 
adversarial proceeding took place." After that ruling, the prosecution 
stipulated that no physical evidence linked Glossip to the crime scene. He was 
convicted again based largely on Sneed's testimony, although his account of 
Glossip's alleged involvement diverged from what he said at the 1st trial, 
which diverged from his original confession to police. According to Glossip's 
lawyers, Sneed has given 8 "very different" accounts.

Last January, the Supreme Court stayed Glossip's execution so that it could 
hear a challenge that he and other death-row inmates had made to the use of the 
drug midazolam as the anesthetic in a 3-drug lethal-injection procedure, before 
the other drugs were administered to paralyze the inmate and then to stop his 
heart. The challenge came after Oklahoma's gruesome execution of an inmate in 
2014, when the state used midazolam and it failed to fully anesthetize him, 
causing him searing pain.

3 months ago, at the end of the recent Court term, the Justices upheld the use 
of the drug by 5-4. They said that Glossip's lawyers had not shown that the 
state had a better option than midazolam or that the use of midazolam with the 
other drugs was "sure or very likely to result in needless suffering."

The 1st reason that the Glossip case is likely to be a point of reference is 
the widely commented-on dissent by Justice Stephen Breyer, who, "rather than 
try to patch up the death penalty's legal wounds one at a time," devoted 41 
pages to arguing "that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment" - that 
is, the constitutional clause prohibiting the infliction of "cruel and unusual 
punishments." Breyer's dissent laid out his reasons: "(1) serious 
unreliability, (2) arbitrariness in application, and (3) unconscionably long 
delays that undermine the death penalty's penological purpose. Perhaps as a 
result, (4) most places within the United States have abandoned its use."

The Glossip case doesn't illustrate all of these reasons, but it provides a 
case study in the unreliability of the application of the death sentence. 
Glossip's current lawyers have raised serious doubts about his guilt, which 
make his conviction dubious and his death sentence unjust. His counsel in his 
1st trial was reprehensibly bad. His counsel in his 2nd trial exceeded the very 
low standard for ineffective counsel, but did a poor cross-examination of 
Sneed, the main witness against Glossip. From the decision to charge Glossip 
with a capital crime to some unsavory tactical moves in the second trial, the 
prosecution was unquestionably overzealous and may have crossed the line into 
misconduct.

Cases like Glossip's are all too common. In 2005, the Center on Wrongful 
Convictions, at Northwestern, reported that 51 of the 111 people exonerated of 
capital crimes since the death penalty was reinstated, in the 1970s, "were 
sentenced to death based in whole or part on the testimony of witnesses with 
incentives to lie," including some who were "promised leniency in their own 
cases," as Sneed was in this one.

The 2nd reason that this case is likely to be a point of reference in any 
narrative of death-penalty abolition is the way that it has played out in an 
Oklahoma state court this month. After his loss at the Supreme Court, Glossip 
was scheduled to be executed on September 16th, but his lawyers asked the 
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals for a stay of execution so that they could 
put together a case based on newly obtained accounts from 2 witnesses, which, 
they said, destroyed the credibility of the testimony implicating Glossip. The 
court granted a stay "in order for this court to give fair consideration to the 
materials included," but, on Monday, decided not to let a state trial court 
consider the new evidence. It ended the stay, so the state can execute Glossip 
today, unless the Supreme Court intervenes.

The opinion for the majority in the state appeals-court decision is technical, 
and this sentence is key: "The claims do not fall within the guidelines of the 
post-conviction procedure act allowing this Court to consider the merits or 
grant relief." The opinion said, basically, that the new evidence wasn't new 
and that Glossip's lawyers were raising issues already raised and rejected on a 
previous appeal. A dissent pointed out that the failure to review his claims 
could be a miscarriage of justice: Glossip is about to be executed and "the 
State has no interest in executing an actually innocent man."

The ruling has nothing to do with the merits of the case. It has everything to 
do with the state's attempt to bring death-penalty cases to an end because of 
"the legal principle of finality of judgment," as the majority opinion put it - 
even if that means denying a hearing that might exonerate an innocent man. The 
Supreme Court has favored this kind of impatience for decades. It has 
repeatedly put an end to federal cases, even when a federal appeals court had 
good reasons for not wanting to end a case - not wanting to permit a state to 
execute a death-row inmate who might be innocent or who might have been 
wrongfully sentenced to death.

The Breyer dissent this summer laid out why there are often strong reasons to 
address the merits of these cases:

Researchers have calculated that courts (or State Governors) are 130 times more 
likely to exonerate a defendant where a death sentence is at issue. They are 9 
times more likely to exonerate where a capital murder, rather than a noncapital 
murder, is at issue.

Why is that so? To some degree, it must be because the law that governs capital 
cases is more complex. To some degree, it must reflect the fact that courts 
scrutinize capital cases more closely. But, to some degree, it likely also 
reflects a greater likelihood of an initial wrongful conviction. How could that 
be so? In the view of researchers who have conducted these studies, it could be 
so because the crimes at issue in capital cases are typically horrendous 
murders, and thus accompanied by intense community pressure on police, 
prosecutors, and jurors to secure a conviction. This pressure creates a greater 
likelihood of convicting the wrong person.

Breyer's dissent riled Scalia. He responded with a concurrence that said that 
Breyer's "argument is full of internal contradictions and (it must be said) 
gobbledy-gook." In a more sober mood, during a speech last week at Rhodes 
College, in Tennessee, Scalia said that there are 4 votes on the Supreme Court 
to rule the death penalty unconstitutional - those of the moderate liberals. In 
the term that opens next week, 4 of the 34 cases the Justices have said, so 
far, that they will review deal with the death penalty. As Rory Little of the 
University of California's Hastings College of Law wrote on Scotusblog, this 
could be "the biggest Eighth Amendment term in 40 years."

In the wake of Pope Francis's visit, Robert J. Smith, who is a visiting scholar 
at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, suggested that there might 
be a 5th vote to abolish capital punishment. In Slate, he compared the Pope's 
call for "global abolition of the death penalty," based on the values of 
dignity and hope, with themes of recent Supreme Court rulings that have limited 
the application of the death penalty and other excessive punishment. He quoted 
opinions of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was in the audience when the Pope 
addressed Congress.

Smith didn't predict that Kennedy will vote to rule that the death penalty is 
unconstitutional, but he quoted a recent opinion of the Justice, in which he 
wrote, "The Eighth Amendment's protection of dignity reflects the Nation we 
have been, the Nation we are, and the Nation we aspire to be." That's the kind 
of Kennedy homily that makes Scalia apoplectic, but it's in the spirit of the 
Breyer dissent. It's also the kind of statement that can inspire many 
Americans, including state-court judges far from Washington, D.C.

A 2nd dissent from Monday's state-court ruling in Oklahoma, allowing the state 
to execute Glossip, quoted from the same Kennedy opinion: "The death penalty is 
the gravest sentence our society may impose." The state court, the dissent 
said, should have granted Glossip's request for a new evidentiary hearing to 
investigate his claim of innocence. Why? Because - in Kennedy's words again - 
those who face "that most severe sanction must have a fair opportunity to show 
that the Constitution prohibits their execution."

(source: The New Yorker)

*******************

Pope urges Oklahoma governor to stop execution of man who claims innocence


Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip is set to be executed Wednesday 
afternoon. The Pope urged Oklahoma's governor to halt the execution of an 
inmate set to die Wednesday.

A letter from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, Pope Francis' diplomatic 
representative to the U.S., requested that Gov. Mary Fallin commute the death 
sentence of inmate Richard Glossip.

The note, dated Sept. 19 was released by the state Wednesday, just hours before 
Glossip - who has long claimed he is innocent in the 1997 motel killing - is 
set to die.

Capital punishment should only be used in "cases of absolute necessity" and 
such instances are "very rare" today, Vigano wrote, invoking the words of Pope 
John Paul II.

Commuting Glossip's sentence "would give clearer witness to the value and 
dignity of every person's life," the Catholic leader wrote.

"May God guide your prayerful consideration of this request by pope Francis for 
what I believe would be an admirable and just act of clemency," he said in the 
note.

Pope Francis urged Oklahoma's governor to halt the execution in a newly 
released letter dated Sept. 19.

A spokesman for Fallin said the governor does not have the authority to grant a 
commutation.

Vigano sent a similar letter Tuesday to officials in Georgia, but that didn't 
stop the execution of Kelly Renee Gissendaner.

Glossip is scheduled to be executed Wednesday afternoon at the Oklahoma State 
Penitentiary in McAlester, despite his claim of innocence. His lawyers have 
requested a stay of execution with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Glossip was convicted of ordering the beating death of an Oklahoma City motel 
owner. But Glossip has long claimed that he was framed by the actual killer, 
Justin Sneed, who is serving a life sentence. Sneed was the state's key witness 
against Glossip in 2 separate trials.

Just hours before Glossip was originally to be put to death on Sept. 16, the 
state's highest criminal court granted a 2-week reprieve to investigative new 
evidence - including another inmate's claim that he overheard Sneed admit to 
framing Glossip.

The note was penned by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, Pope Francis' diplomatic 
representative to the U.S.

But in a 3-2 decision earlier this week, the same court denied Glossip's 
request for an evidentiary hearing and emergency stay of execution, paving the 
way for his execution to proceed.

Unless a court halts the execution, it will be the 1st in Oklahoma since the 
U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld the state's three-drug lethal injection 
formula that includes the sedative midazolam. Glossip and other death row 
inmates had argued that the sedative did not adequately render an inmate 
unconscious before the lethal drugs were administered.

Oklahoma first used the drug last year in the execution of Clayton Lockett, who 
writhed on the gurney, moaned and clenched his teeth for several minutes before 
prison officials tried to halt the process. He died 43 minutes after it was 
first injected.

(source: New York Daily News)

************

Fallin receives letter on behalf of Pope Francis 'to commute' Glossip execution


On behalf of Pope Francis, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano sent a letter to Gov. 
Mary Fallin in regard to the planned execution of Richard Glossip.

The letter asked Fallin 'to commute' Glossip's death sentence.

Despite the request, Fallin does not have the legal authority to move the 
execution, said Alex Weintz, communications director for Fallin.

Glossip is scheduled to be executed Wednesday afternoon.

(source: KOCO news)