The defense team for 52-year-old Richard Glossip, who was convicted of arranging the 1997 murder of the owner of an Oklahoma City motel he was managing, filed the request in a state appeals court.
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Attorneys for Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip are livid claiming prosecutors are intimidating their witnesses.
In their Wednesday court filing, Glossip’s attorneys said Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater had Rogers County authorities arrest Scott for parole violations so that Prater could interrogate him.
Glossip’s attorneys for the appeals have argued that his trial representation didn’t present enough evidence to discredit Sneed, who was sentenced to life in prison and testified against Glossip.
The attorneys said Michael Scott, who signed an affidavit saying he heard convicted murderer Justin Sneed brag about setting Glossip up for the crime, was arrested on Tuesday on a warrant for a $200 unpaid fine and failure to complete community service connected to a recent drunk driving arrest.
Prater, whose workplace prosecuted Glossip earlier than Prater was elected, provided a one-sentence assertion refuting the attorneys’ claims.
According to court records, Prater specifically told Scott he ordered the arrest warrant “so that Scott would be forced to talk with Prater and his investigator”.
“Very soon it will be clear that the allegations made by defense lawyers and their witnesses are lies”, Prater said Wednesday night, while declining further comment.
Another witness, Joseph Tapley, also reportedly has a new arrest warrant out of Oklahoma county.
The notice does not include detail about Tapley’s potential testimony but says that “intimidating conduct…by the State should be immediately stopped”.
His case garnered worldwide consideration after Hollywood actress Susan Sarandon, who performed a nun within the film “Dead Man Walking“, took up his trigger. The woman Sarandon portrayed in the movie, anti-death penalty advocate Sister Helen Prejean, has served as Glossip’s spiritual adviser and frequently visited him in prison.
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The court issued a stay for Glossip on September 16, about three hours before his planned execution, so that it could consider evidence the lawyers said points to his innocence, and it then set a new execution date of September 30.
