Judge Swallows Prosecutors’ Discredited Arguments to Keep Richard Glossip in Jail

In an order that reads like it was written two decades ago an Oklahoma County judge on Wednesday denied bond for Richard Glossip keeping him in jail while the state prepares to try him a third time for first-degree murder In the -page document District Judge Heather Coyle underplays the significance of the U S Supreme Court s February ruling that overturned Glossip s preponderance new conviction The ruling instead largely adopts the state s theory of the crime that sent Glossip to death row while ignoring volumes of evidence that have been discovered in the intervening years Having considered the record arguments of all parties and the exhibits submitted by the parties the court finds that the state has sufficiently shown by clear and convincing evidence that the presumption of the defendant s guilt of a capital offense is great Coyle wrote Accordingly the court finds Mr Glossip s request for bond should be and is hereby denied The order comes despite last week s revelation that in a email exchange Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond agreed to a tentative plea deal that would have allowed Glossip to walk free The correspondence first stated by The Intercept is at the heart of a motion filed by Glossip s defense attorneys who have questioned Coyle to enforce what they describe as a legally binding agreement The state has responded by denying that the deal was ever reached but the judge has yet to rule on the matter Glossip was twice convicted of the murder of Barry Van Treese inside room of the rundown motel his family owned on the outskirts of Oklahoma City A -year-old maintenance man named Justin Sneed admitted to bludgeoning Van Treese to death but insisted Glossip put him up to it Sneed who is at present serving a life sentence escaped the death penalty by becoming the star witness against Glossip Read Our Complete Coverage Murder at the Motel Until not long ago it was clear that Sneed had been discredited as a witness including by Drummond After taking office in Drummond ordered an independent scrutiny into Glossip s scenario concluding that he had lost confidence in Glossip s conviction Drummond took unprecedented approaches to block Glossip s execution and to overturn his conviction successfully arguing to the U S Supreme Court that Sneed the state s once indispensable witness had lied on the witness stand Drummond now seems determined to go forward with trying Glossip for murder a third time using the same evidence previously used to convict him During a June bond hearing prosecutors offered nothing new instead asking the judge to review the transcripts from Glossip s preliminary hearing and his trial That appears to have been enough for Coyle In her order denying Glossip bond the judge relies heavily on Sneed s prior testimony while suggesting there are other onlookers who could bolster the state s scenario against Glossip But for the bulk part these other observers offered nothing more than circumstantial evidence that called into question Glossip s behavior after Van Treese s murder Discredited Testimony Glossip was originally charged as an accessory after the fact for initially failing to give police information about the murder The night Van Treese was killed Glossip stated Sneed had woken him up around a m by knocking on the wall of his apartment which was adjacent to the motel s office Standing outside with a black eye Sneed described Glossip he had chased off chosen drunks who had broken a window in one of the motel rooms According to Glossip he appealed Sneed about his black eye and Sneed flippantly replied I killed Barry It wasn t until the next morning when no one could find Van Treese that Glossip realized Sneed might have been serious Still Glossip didn t tell the cops right away he reported his girlfriend suggested waiting until they figured out what was going on In her order Coyle relies on observers who describe things Glossip did that suggest he covered up his knowledge of the crime including that Glossip had helped Sneed put plexiglass over the broken window of the room where Van Treese was killed Coyle cited in particular the notion that Glossip was trying to steer people away from Room in an apparent attempt to ensure that Van Treese s body would not be discovered Multiple bystanders promotion that Mr Glossip followed through with this plan Coyle wrote emphasizing her point in bold The fact remains however that these accounts only look damning through the lens of Sneed s story about Glossip being in on the murder itself Aside from Sneed s already discredited testimony there is still no evidence to assistance this While prosecutors have offered nothing new to patronage the position that Glossip is a murderer his defense crew has spent more than a decade uncovering new evidence and new observers that not only point to Sneed as the sole perpetrator of the crime but also reveal that the state hid and destroyed evidence before Glossip s retrial At the bond hearing and in court briefs Glossip s attorneys tried to offer Coyle much of this evidence including letters Sneed wrote expressing his desire to recant his testimony against Glossip They also revealed several of the bystanders the state relied on have since died meaning the defense would have no opportunity to cross-examine them about new and previously undisclosed evidence While Coyle revealed she would consider certain of the defense s new information her ultimate order reflects that she didn t consider any of it save for a single paragraph noting that the Supreme Court had overturned Glossip s conviction As for the prosecution s star witness if the state had wished the court to indeed consider the testimony of Mr Sneed in making this bond determination it could have called him as a witness at the hearing Glossip s lawyers wrote Its failure to do so and to instead ask the court to rely on thoroughly discredited testimony speaks volumes as to their confidence in Sneed s credibility in the modern day The post Judge Swallows Prosecutors Discredited Arguments to Keep Richard Glossip in Jail appeared first on The Intercept