Next week the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Glossip v. Oklahoma. Death row inmate Glossip claims that the prosecutors at his murder trial withheld evidence from him. In a curious twist, the State of Oklahoma has reversed its long-held position supporting Glossip's conviction and now joins Glossip. I have filed an amicus brief for the murder victim's family, presenting important facts about the case the parties have concealed from the Court. In this three-part series, I review the true facts of the case. Working together, Glossip and Oklahoma have concocted a phantom denial of evidence. In fact, the prosecutors never withheld any evidence from the defense. The Supreme Court should rapidly affirm the lower court's decision upholding Glossip's conviction and death sentence—and help bring the victim's family closer to closure after more than two decades of litigation.
In this first post, I demonstrate that the alleged violation of Brady v. Maryland (requiring the State to provide exculpatory evidence to a defendant) simply never happened. The evidence that Glossip alleges prosecutors withheld was, in fact, fully known to the defense, as my amicus brief explains. Tomorrow, in the second post, I will review Glossip's and Oklahoma's (non)responses to this decisive point. Their silence in briefing before the Court is powerful support for my position. Finally, in the last post, I draw some broader conclusions about non-adversarial litigation such as this one. This case presents a cautionary tale about the dangers of courts simply accepting an elected prosecutor's confession of "error," which may be politically motivated.
The story begins on January 7, 1997, when authorities found the slain body of Barry Van Treese in a motel located in Oklahoma City that he owned. Van Treese had been missing for several hours that day. The subsequent search for Van Treese consumed everyone associated with the motel … everyone, that is, except Richard Glossip.
