Speaker 1: Richard Glossop was the manager of a Cede motel in
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City called the Best Budget in where he was
Speaker 1: responsible for large sums of cash belonging to its owner,
Speaker 1: Barry Van Trees, cash that he could have stolen at
Speaker 1: any time without violence. A traveling roofer and meth addict
Speaker 1: named Justin Snee began staying at the motel in exchange
Speaker 1: for maintenance work, while enjoying easy access to the drugs
Speaker 1: and prostitutes one might find at a CD motel. In
Speaker 1: the early morning of January seven, Stead and a girlfriend
Speaker 1: lured Barry van Trees into Room one O two to
Speaker 1: rob him of the cash he was known to carry.
Speaker 1: Barry resisted and was bludgeoned at stabbed to death. His
Speaker 1: car was moved to a nearby lot. Later that morning,
Speaker 1: sneyed off handedly told Richard that he had killed Barry,
Speaker 1: but after seeing that Barry's car was not at its
Speaker 1: usual spot, Richard dismissed what he thought was Sneed's usual
Speaker 1: drug adult ramblings. When the body was discovered, Richard told
Speaker 1: police about what Sneed had said, causing them to focus
Speaker 1: on him. Even though Sneed eventually confessed, police steered him
Speaker 1: to implicate Richard as the mastermind of a murder for
Speaker 1: higher scheme. For his testimony, Sneed escaped the death penalty
Speaker 1: in exchange for life without parole, swapping Richard into his place.
Speaker 1: The word of a meth head and alleged motive to
Speaker 1: steal cash was all. It took. Twenty four years, two trials,
Speaker 1: three stays of execution, a lethal injection drug scandal, and
Speaker 1: two Supreme Court cases later, Richard remains a death row
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma. This is wrongful Conviction with Jason Flopper. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to wrongful conviction with Jason flomm That's me. And
Speaker 1: if I sound a little down today, it's because this
Speaker 1: case Ace that you're going to hear about is one
Speaker 1: of the most troubling cases I've ever heard of in
Speaker 1: my now twenty ninth year of doing this type of work.
Speaker 1: With us today we have one of the respected, even
Speaker 1: revered criminal and civil defense attorneys, a man named Don Knight.
Speaker 1: Welcome to ronfle Conviction. Thank you, Jason. I appreciate that,
Speaker 1: and of course with us today calling in from the
Speaker 1: Oklahoma State Penitentiary where he is now in his twenty
Speaker 1: third year on death row. And that is of course
Speaker 1: Richard Gloss. Hello, this is a collect call from and
Speaker 1: incarcerated individual at Oklahoma State Penitentiary. This call is not private.
Speaker 1: This call will be recorded and may be monitored. To
Speaker 1: consent to this recorded call, press one to disconnect. Thank
Speaker 1: you for using securance. You may start the conversation now. Hello, Richard.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you're here under these circumstances, but I'm happier here.
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool. That's cool. Twenty four years of this
Speaker 1: and uh, it's been a long battle and it just continues.
Speaker 1: But the good thing is I'm still here. Richard, you
Speaker 1: don't mind take us back to your childhood. Use that
Speaker 1: sort of an unusual childhood and moved from Illinois to Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: But also, you were one of a lot of children, right,
Speaker 1: You had a lot of brothers and sisters. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I actually grew up in Gillsborge, Illinois. There was sixteen
Speaker 1: of us. There was eight boys and eight girls. You know,
Speaker 1: I grew up around a lot of addiction and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and you know, I just didn't think I
Speaker 1: was going to get anywhere if I stayed there any longer.
Speaker 1: And left home when I was fourteen and just made
Speaker 1: it on my own. You know, it's actually kind of
Speaker 1: a miracle that you survived. I mean, we could do
Speaker 1: a whole podcast about that alone, but your story hadn't
Speaker 1: even begun yet. So okay, you were strange from your
Speaker 1: family for many years, working and getting by. But how
Speaker 1: did you end up in Oklahoma where you got a
Speaker 1: job at the best budget in working for Barry Van Trees.
Speaker 1: My mom and dad retired and they decided to move
Speaker 1: out here to Oklahoma to be closer to my mom's family,
Speaker 1: and my dad's health was selling and my mom asked
Speaker 1: me if I would come out here in some times
Speaker 1: with my dad, and that's how I ended up with
Speaker 1: the best budget in. Barry Van Tresse didn't just run
Speaker 1: the best budget in Oklahoma City, he also ran best
Speaker 1: budget in in Tulsa. These were really low rent motels.
Speaker 1: They were a cash business. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: drug activity and prostitution. Barry Van trest would come by
Speaker 1: every couple of weeks to the Oklahoma City Best Budget
Speaker 1: in where he would pick up the cash from Rich.
Speaker 1: Rich would have sometimes up to thirty dollars in receipts
Speaker 1: depending on how long it took for Van Trees to
Speaker 1: come by. The motel. So Rich was constantly handling large
Speaker 1: amounts of money, and there was never any question about
Speaker 1: whether Rich was stealing money. He was not steal anything
Speaker 1: at all, right, And if he wanted to steal the money,
Speaker 1: he could have done so almost any time without violence,
Speaker 1: and he could have skipped down. But he never did,
Speaker 1: and certainly he didn't do so by involving a math
Speaker 1: head named Justin Snead. Now Justin had come through town
Speaker 1: with a roof and crew out of Texas, and while
Speaker 1: he was staying at the best budget in he worked
Speaker 1: out a deal for a free room and exchange for
Speaker 1: a maintenance and other work around the motel. Right, yes,
Speaker 1: I said, hey, I need you to go take care
Speaker 1: of this, or he needs to take these people from
Speaker 1: toils or whatever the case. Maybe he always did it,
Speaker 1: but as time went by, he was getting harder to
Speaker 1: find him, and I was gonna let him go a
Speaker 1: couple of times, but you know, very like the fact
Speaker 1: that he was working beru but very good moment to
Speaker 1: let him goes. But towards all this happening, in the end,
Speaker 1: it was like I hardly ever found him to do
Speaker 1: what he was supposed to do. Did you catch any
Speaker 1: signs that he was using math, Well, they were up
Speaker 1: all the time. So I did have a couple of
Speaker 1: family members that did it, and so learning from how
Speaker 1: they acted, you know, I could tell that, yeah, definitely
Speaker 1: they want something. Justin was a very odd guy. He
Speaker 1: would say things that would throw you off. He would
Speaker 1: say things that would just make you scratch your head
Speaker 1: and gold Man, this guy is just like really weird.
Speaker 1: So were there any signs that he might have been
Speaker 1: robbing people to support his habit? Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: have one of the guy named John Biebers came to
Speaker 1: me and that that he was missing a big jar
Speaker 1: of coins. When he said he thought Justin did it,
Speaker 1: I didn't believe him, but hindsight right, Yeah, it sure is.
Speaker 1: And at the time, you and your girlfriend Diana would
Speaker 1: were spending a lot of time together and most of
Speaker 1: it at the motel. Yeah. I lived on the property.
Speaker 1: I lived behind the front desk in an apartment, so
Speaker 1: I'm always on the property other than like Dena and
Speaker 1: I've been able to go out and do something on
Speaker 1: our own. Why the death work was there? Now? This
Speaker 1: brings us all the way up to January seven, at
Speaker 1: six am. Justin sneed woke Rich up and told him
Speaker 1: about a broken window and then kind of off handily says, oh,
Speaker 1: and by the way, I killed Barry. Now, Snead was
Speaker 1: known for saying weird stuff like that, and so when
Speaker 1: Richard looked at Barry's usual parking spot and didn't see
Speaker 1: Barry's car, he wrote it off as Sneed just being sneaed. Now,
Speaker 1: later on, Barry van tress car was spotted in the
Speaker 1: Credit Union parking lot, about fifty yards away from the
Speaker 1: best budget in but there was no sign of Barry.
Speaker 1: So this kicked off a search, and rich was out
Speaker 1: shopping with his Girlfrienddianna and was called back to work
Speaker 1: around three pm. So at this point rich is wondering
Speaker 1: do I tell the police about what Sneed said, but
Speaker 1: he Indiana decided against it because they didn't even know
Speaker 1: if Barry was dead or not, And finally at ten pm,
Speaker 1: Barry's body was discovered in room one oh two. He
Speaker 1: had been beaten with a baseball bat as well as
Speaker 1: having been stabbed with a blunt object. What happened here
Speaker 1: was that Barry van Trese stopped in in the evening
Speaker 1: of January six, took care of payroll and took care
Speaker 1: of everybody at the Best Budget in Oklahoma City before
Speaker 1: leaving and driving Tulsa to take care of of the
Speaker 1: payroll and the situation in Tulsa. He didn't get to
Speaker 1: Tulsa till around midnight or so, and didn't stay there
Speaker 1: very long, told the people and Tulsa, and he left
Speaker 1: to tell his wife that he would be home in
Speaker 1: five and a half hours. Home was Lawton, Oklahoma. It
Speaker 1: doesn't take five and a half hours to get to Lawton,
Speaker 1: so obviously, when he said that he had plans to stop,
Speaker 1: he stopped back at the Best Budget in in Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City where he went to room one oh two, and
Speaker 1: that's where Justin Sneed was waiting for him, or at
Speaker 1: least his girlfriend was waiting for him. Because we have
Speaker 1: found out that there was another person involved in this case.
Speaker 1: It wasn't Rich Glossop, but it was Justin Sneed's girlfriend.
Speaker 1: The information that we have found is that it was
Speaker 1: simply a robbery attempt. These two meth fueled young people
Speaker 1: thought they could simply take the keys from Barry Van
Speaker 1: Trese and get the money out of his car without
Speaker 1: Van Trese knowing or objecting. I don't know what their
Speaker 1: plan was. We talked to one witness and she had
Speaker 1: a great statement. She said, when you've been on mess
Speaker 1: for twenty days in a row, the idea fairy appears.
Speaker 1: That looks like what happened here. These two people knew
Speaker 1: Barry Ventres had a lot of money, and so we
Speaker 1: think that he was lured into room one o two
Speaker 1: by this girl. He knew he was coming back to
Speaker 1: that place, and once they're confronted by Justin Snead. From
Speaker 1: the information we have that we have found from new witnesses,
Speaker 1: Snead admitted that he was intending simply to take Van
Speaker 1: Trese's money and not kill him. But Van Trese fought back,
Speaker 1: and at the end of that fight, Barry van Trese
Speaker 1: was beaten to death. It wasn't just beaten to death,
Speaker 1: but there was also some stab wounds on his body
Speaker 1: from a very blunt object. And the blunt object appears
Speaker 1: to be a pocket knife that the police found in
Speaker 1: the motel room that had its tip broken off. So
Speaker 1: for this murder, Justin Sneed and his girlfriend had two weapons,
Speaker 1: a baseball bat and a broken knife. That would be
Speaker 1: really low on anyone's choices of how to go right,
Speaker 1: um sure, But also I think low on somebody's idea
Speaker 1: of how to kill somebody. I mean, if you're really
Speaker 1: planning to murder someone, you don't go with a dull
Speaker 1: knife in a baseball bat. You know. It sounds like
Speaker 1: a bad plan from mess fueled young people, and the
Speaker 1: aftermath was a continuation of that bad plan. The vehicle
Speaker 1: where the money was was moved not more than fifty yards,
Speaker 1: not as if it was moved away so that it
Speaker 1: could be hidden. It was within plain view of the
Speaker 1: best budget in in a credit union, right next to
Speaker 1: the best budget in. It was found there the next
Speaker 1: morning by the security guard off duty Sheriff's deputy working
Speaker 1: at the way Yoke credit Union found this vehicle sort
Speaker 1: of with one tire up on the curb, parked in
Speaker 1: a place that it shouldn't be parked, and that's what
Speaker 1: started the investigation on the seventh into Barry Van Tresea's death.
Speaker 1: So you might notice that Rich hasn't been mentioned yet
Speaker 1: in the story of this crime, and that's because no one,
Speaker 1: not even the prosecution, ever claimed that he was even
Speaker 1: in the room when it happened. Rich was sleeping in
Speaker 1: the apartment behind the front desk with his girlfriend. That's undisputed.
Speaker 1: So why are we even having this conversation and how
Speaker 1: is Rich on death row? Well, the lead investigators in
Speaker 1: this case BMLINKOK, who did little to no investigation, basically
Speaker 1: didn't talk to anyone at the motel and instead focused
Speaker 1: on Richard early on. For a few very ill conceived reasons.
Speaker 1: They focused on Rich and I think the first reason
Speaker 1: is Rich's last name is Gloss. Rich's family was a
Speaker 1: known family with a criminal history in Oklahoma, So I
Speaker 1: think that's one thing. That The second thing when they
Speaker 1: found Vantres's body at ten o'clock and they said, you know, Rich,
Speaker 1: why don't you come in and sit and talk with us?
Speaker 1: And it was at that point that Rich told them
Speaker 1: about that statement that Snead made. That was the point
Speaker 1: I think when the police said, oh, well, he's hiding something.
Speaker 1: And I think that, in combination with Rich's last name,
Speaker 1: I think that's what made the police begin to think
Speaker 1: Rich Gloss have had something to do with this case.
Speaker 1: They decide to focus on this one statement that he omitted, right,
Speaker 1: which is I don't know that I would have done
Speaker 1: anything differently myself. It's clearly his right to do so.
Speaker 1: I mean, he doesn't have to talk to the police.
Speaker 1: Nobody has to talk to the police. After this initial interview,
Speaker 1: on the seventh, Rich sells some personal I was to
Speaker 1: raise money for a lawyer and talk to an attorney
Speaker 1: named David Mackenzie, who told him quite rightly to not
Speaker 1: speak with the police. But Rich did what a lot
Speaker 1: of innocent people do, right. He believed that just telling
Speaker 1: the truth will set you free, so he talked to
Speaker 1: Demo and Cook. Anyway, in the parking lot of Mackenzie's office,
Speaker 1: the police were waiting for Rich. Rather than tell them
Speaker 1: I can't talk to you because this lawyer just told
Speaker 1: me this is what I'm supposed to say, Rich says, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you. And Demo and Cook have a
Speaker 1: real bad history of how they do their interrogations, and
Speaker 1: when they set themselves upon Rich, they were going to
Speaker 1: do what they could do to try to get Rich
Speaker 1: to say things that they could say, We're inconsistent, and
Speaker 1: then they would start driving that home to try to
Speaker 1: get him to confess to this crime. But he never
Speaker 1: does confess to the crime. However, they start trying to
Speaker 1: tell him that he said things in his initial interview
Speaker 1: on the seventh that he did not. They tried to
Speaker 1: catch him in lies with lies of their own, and
Speaker 1: it's clear that they have their sights set on him. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Snee took off on the afternoon of the seventh, before
Speaker 1: Barry's body was even found. He went off working with
Speaker 1: the roof and crew that he came into town with
Speaker 1: from Texas, trying to make himself scarce. Basically, yeah, he
Speaker 1: left new motel sometime after three o'clock, just took a
Speaker 1: skateboard and took off again. It was it's something that
Speaker 1: the prosecutor in both trials tried to paint that he
Speaker 1: was totally dependent on Glossip for everything because he had
Speaker 1: no way of making any money, which was just wrong.
Speaker 1: I mean, first off, he was stealing the place blind
Speaker 1: he was, he was breaking into motel rooms, he was
Speaker 1: breaking into cars, he was doing everything he could do
Speaker 1: to get money for his drug habit. But when he
Speaker 1: left the motel that day, he skateboarded over to where
Speaker 1: the people who he used to work for doing roofing
Speaker 1: were and he joined the roofing crew again. So he
Speaker 1: had the opportunity at any point in time to go
Speaker 1: make more money doing his roofing work than he ever
Speaker 1: made it the best budget in and he did that
Speaker 1: on that day. They didn't catch Snead until the fourteenth
Speaker 1: of January. It was the owner of the roofing company
Speaker 1: who seeing the news accounts of what had happened and
Speaker 1: seeing Sneed's picture on the news, that said to Snead,
Speaker 1: I think you need to turn yourself in. So he's
Speaker 1: the one that called the police, and that's when they
Speaker 1: interrogated Sneed, right, and it sneeds interrogation. It's clear that
Speaker 1: Rich is their main target, so they start working Snead
Speaker 1: over to both admit to the crime and implicate Rich
Speaker 1: in some way. Yeah, this was not a situation where
Speaker 1: they were saying, okay, justin we've we've caught you, why
Speaker 1: don't you tell us what happened. Instead, they go through
Speaker 1: this long prelude telling him what happened, telling him what
Speaker 1: they know, telling him that they know that somebody else
Speaker 1: was involved and they don't want him to hang alone.
Speaker 1: And in Sneeds first is like, I don't even know
Speaker 1: what to say. I don't want to tell you, as
Speaker 1: if he didn't have anything to do with it, And
Speaker 1: then they brought Rich's name into it. We think Rich
Speaker 1: had something to do with it. You know, he's under arrest.
Speaker 1: So Snead never said anything about glossip at all. That
Speaker 1: came from the police and then they began to work
Speaker 1: with Snead from there until they finally got this sort
Speaker 1: of crazy idea about Rich wanting to steal the money,
Speaker 1: killed Van Trees and split the money with Snead and
Speaker 1: somehow or another they would run the motels. Some crazy
Speaker 1: story that that came out, which I think you would
Speaker 1: probably expect from somebody who's high on math, right and
Speaker 1: who's being fed information by police who are exactly not
Speaker 1: interested in the truth here. Um so, because if they
Speaker 1: had been interested in the truth, they simply what I said,
Speaker 1: want to tell us what happened, tell us everything that
Speaker 1: you know. And so Snead confesses to the murder. But
Speaker 1: what's clear from his interrogation is that he was steered
Speaker 1: to drag Rich into it as the mastermind of a
Speaker 1: murder for higher plot, and then Snead uses this made
Speaker 1: up scenario to save himself, making a deal for a
Speaker 1: life without parole instead of the death penalt. We have
Speaker 1: a witness who says he talked to Snead that year
Speaker 1: while he was in jail with Sneed and a. Snead said,
Speaker 1: I had two main goals. One I didn't want the
Speaker 1: death penalty, and too I didn't want my girlfriend to
Speaker 1: get caught. Snead got bold of what he wanted at
Speaker 1: Rich's expense. This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss Rifkin,
Speaker 1: Wharton and Garrison. A leading international law fer. Paul Weiss
Speaker 1: has long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro
Speaker 1: bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of our
Speaker 1: society and in support of the public interest, including extensive
Speaker 1: work in the criminal justice area. Detective Demo in the
Speaker 1: docuseries That Was Done changed what he testified the two trials,
Speaker 1: saying that it was a murder for hire. He gets
Speaker 1: a statement in our docuseries where he says, Oh, I
Speaker 1: think it was a robbery went bad. That's the original
Speaker 1: story that Justin gave him, that it was a robbery
Speaker 1: went bad, and they knew that that's what it was,
Speaker 1: but they needed it to be more. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: you know, prosecutors and stuff need these notches in their
Speaker 1: belts so bad so they could further their career. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter who they get that notch from, as
Speaker 1: long as they get it. My first judge, Judge Johnson,
Speaker 1: even even looked at the prosecutor and said, I don't
Speaker 1: understand where this is the murder case. And she convinced
Speaker 1: the judge will give me some time. And that's the
Speaker 1: only reason the judge even allowed to go forward, because
Speaker 1: he was convinced by a prosecutor to let her build
Speaker 1: a case. Oh so, don there is a villain in
Speaker 1: this story, of course, I'm talking about then district attorney
Speaker 1: Bob Macy, who was nicknamed the Angel of Death and
Speaker 1: he seemed to get off unwinning death penalty cases, innocent, guilty, whatever.
Speaker 1: Um he played dress up like a cowboy, although he
Speaker 1: was not a cowboy. Can you tell us about this
Speaker 1: this awful character, Bob Macy is just one of a
Speaker 1: handful of prosecuting attorneys in the country that really drives
Speaker 1: that the death penalty in in this country, they're only
Speaker 1: a handful of places where most of the death penalty
Speaker 1: verdicts come from. At least that has been the way
Speaker 1: in the past. New Orleans, there was certainly one in
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City. And these prosecutors, they derive their power. I
Speaker 1: think and and their their political base from seeking and
Speaker 1: getting the death penalty. They look at that as being
Speaker 1: tough on crime, and Macy certainly forged his legacy with
Speaker 1: all of that in mind. I think the thing that
Speaker 1: happens in these places is it can't just be one
Speaker 1: person that does this, but it becomes a culture. He
Speaker 1: was in power in Oklahoma City for a long time.
Speaker 1: A lot of his prosecutors went on to become judges.
Speaker 1: So now you've got not just the prosecuting attorney's office,
Speaker 1: but they're on the bench as well. So they've got judges, prosecutors,
Speaker 1: forensic people, you've got police, and you've got jurors who
Speaker 1: are are just ready to go on these death penalty cases.
Speaker 1: And they begin to sort of cow the defense bar
Speaker 1: into either going along and getting their clients some kind
Speaker 1: of plea or they lose at trial, and and these
Speaker 1: death verdicts result. It becomes a cultural situation where you
Speaker 1: have no one fighting anymore for the defendant, and this
Speaker 1: sort of get on the train, get run over by
Speaker 1: the trained mentality takes over. So Rich is charged with
Speaker 1: capital murder, which the fact that he's being tried for
Speaker 1: his life for not having killed anyone is insane in
Speaker 1: and of itself. But that's a totally another story. And
Speaker 1: so a trial snead testified that Rich was the mastermind
Speaker 1: behind this murder for higher plot, thereby receiving the direct
Speaker 1: benefit of not being sent to death row himself. I
Speaker 1: feel like this should have been easy to beat. So
Speaker 1: Rich had a terrible lawyer, guy named Wayne Faunerot. In
Speaker 1: the first trial, he never I don't even know if
Speaker 1: he ever tried a case before. He was completely incompetent
Speaker 1: and put on no witnesses, didn't know how to cross
Speaker 1: examine anybody. Basically, the case when exactly as the prosecutors
Speaker 1: wanted it to go, and Rich was sentenced to death.
Speaker 1: Baigner Rot had no idea how to do a penalty
Speaker 1: phase in a death case. He didn't do any investigation.
Speaker 1: I mean, Rich was a guy without a criminal history
Speaker 1: at all. I mean, you were talking about the death
Speaker 1: penalty in the United States. You're you're supposedly talking about
Speaker 1: the worst of the worst. Well, Rich had never committed
Speaker 1: a crime before. How could he possibly be the worst
Speaker 1: of the worst. Is this crime bad? Yes? Is it
Speaker 1: the worst crime ever? No, it's not the worst crime ever.
Speaker 1: So he doesn't fit that category at all, and yet,
Speaker 1: because of the way things were in Oklahoma at the time,
Speaker 1: they were able to get a conviction and a death sentence.
Speaker 1: Right So, was Rich convicted solely on the basis of
Speaker 1: the testimony of a murderous meth head or was there
Speaker 1: some sort of other evidence offered a trial? I would
Speaker 1: answer the question in both ways. Yes, no question. It
Speaker 1: was really all about what Snead said, and he said
Speaker 1: very many different things at different times. He initially told
Speaker 1: the police that Glossip told him to kill Van Tres
Speaker 1: and rob him of somewhere around five thousand dollars and
Speaker 1: they would split it. But by the time the first
Speaker 1: trial rolled around, Snead added things like Rich told me
Speaker 1: to go buy some meriadic acid because we were going
Speaker 1: to melt the body and I wasn't able to do that.
Speaker 1: So Snead had a variety of stories that ultimately came
Speaker 1: out that just simply shows that he was not telling
Speaker 1: the truth. He was never consistent with anything that he said,
Speaker 1: and the prosecutor had to sort of cobble together what
Speaker 1: the Court of Appeals would later call corroborating evidence that
Speaker 1: was really really weak. From the standpoint of corroborating evidence.
Speaker 1: They had put together a spreadsheet and an allegation that
Speaker 1: Rich was stealing money, that somehow or another, the Vantry's
Speaker 1: family knew he was stealing money and that they were
Speaker 1: about to fire him, and Rich knew he was about
Speaker 1: to be fired, and so that formed the motive for
Speaker 1: Rich to do this killing. There is no real evidence
Speaker 1: of that. We took a look at that spreadsheet, which
Speaker 1: by the way, no one did until we got involved
Speaker 1: in this case. We have to forensic accountants who looked
Speaker 1: at it and they said, the idea that Rich was
Speaker 1: stealing money based upon the information that we see is crazy.
Speaker 1: So after his first conviction, Rich took his case to
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, who called the evidence
Speaker 1: against him extremely weak. And the Oklahoma Quarter Criminal Appeals
Speaker 1: looked at the job that Wayne Faunerott did and said
Speaker 1: this can't be okay, and they, in a unanimous verdict
Speaker 1: which never happens on direct appeal, threw it back and
Speaker 1: said he gets a new trial. Right. So the second
Speaker 1: trial rolls around and Oklahoma is not done with their
Speaker 1: dirty tricks. And you know what I'm talking about, the
Speaker 1: way that they managed to remove an attorney who was
Speaker 1: prepared to probably win this case and right this wrong.
Speaker 1: This lawyer was the appellate lawyer for Rich, a guy
Speaker 1: named Lynn Birch, did a great job getting the case
Speaker 1: tossed out on appeal, decided to keep it, and was
Speaker 1: working the case leading up to this second trial when
Speaker 1: he made an error, and that is going to see
Speaker 1: Justin Sneed the night before the trial began. They think
Speaker 1: Lynn Birch was looking to see if there was some
Speaker 1: way that that Snead would simply come clean and tell
Speaker 1: the truth. The air that Lynn Burch made was not
Speaker 1: taking an investigator with him, not taking a third party.
Speaker 1: Because when he showed up in court the next morning,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor said, Judge, we've got a problem. Lynn Burch
Speaker 1: was threatening our witness and was harassing Justin Snead. Rather
Speaker 1: than fight that, which I think Burch should have done,
Speaker 1: he should have said, I didn't do anything like that.
Speaker 1: I never said anything wrong. Let me tell you what
Speaker 1: I told him. Put me on the witness stand, put
Speaker 1: Sneed on the witness stand. Let's have it out. Birch
Speaker 1: simply said, you know, okay, you know, I probably screwed
Speaker 1: up in there, and he left the case the morning
Speaker 1: of trial, which caused a six month extension. But with
Speaker 1: Birch gone, it left it in the hands of two
Speaker 1: lawyers who were not prepared for the trial, and he
Speaker 1: did very little. And the lead up to the next trial,
Speaker 1: they did no investigation, They put on no witnesses, Their
Speaker 1: cross examinations were horrible. They allowed the prosecution to run
Speaker 1: wild with leading questions. Basically, the kids were greased and
Speaker 1: the and the prosecution just got their case through like
Speaker 1: they wanted. In the second trial, it was really strange
Speaker 1: because the prosecutor came into the courtroom, she looked at
Speaker 1: the jury and she goes, I have no evidence against
Speaker 1: Richard Glad just justin sneeded. So now it becomes who
Speaker 1: you're going to believe. Every witness had new testimony, who
Speaker 1: when they were asked or you didn't remember it the
Speaker 1: day it happened, but you remember seven years later, and
Speaker 1: they would sit there and say, the prosecutor helped us remember.
Speaker 1: As a result, the results were predictable, which is that
Speaker 1: in August two thousand, for another Oklahoma jury found Richard
Speaker 1: guilty and Richard gets sentenced to death. Again. It's strange
Speaker 1: how you go through your whole life doing what's right,
Speaker 1: thinking that you know, if you tell the truth and
Speaker 1: then everything's gonna be okay. Um. And then you're you're
Speaker 1: standing there when somebody says, you know, we find you
Speaker 1: guilty of murder and you had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: this time, and your just your mouth just falls open
Speaker 1: and this feeling comes over. You're like, how can this
Speaker 1: possibly be happening to me? This doesn't make sense. It's
Speaker 1: one of the strangest feelings. It's really hard to put
Speaker 1: into word, but it's just like every part of you
Speaker 1: just goes now. It's like you're just in shock, and
Speaker 1: you don't know, you don't even have a response to it.
Speaker 1: You just stand there and you just like you just
Speaker 1: can't even believe it. It's one of the most overwhelming
Speaker 1: things I've ever had to face. Um. You know when
Speaker 1: I walked in, Um, they take you to the main
Speaker 1: gate up there, and they too in this little shack
Speaker 1: whither you wait to get people to take you down
Speaker 1: to a general where you're supposed to go. And I
Speaker 1: gotta be honest with you, when they open that door,
Speaker 1: like your home just like disappears almost immediately because it's
Speaker 1: so gloomy and so cold, and in all honesty, it
Speaker 1: felt like death. It just felt like you were surrounded
Speaker 1: by death. Rich I want you to know that there
Speaker 1: are a lot of good people who are out of
Speaker 1: here pulling for you more than you even know. And
Speaker 1: so you ended up exhausting all of your appeals with
Speaker 1: substandard representation who never did any of the necessary investigation
Speaker 1: into your case. So predictably you had more of the
Speaker 1: same results, which brings us to your clemency proceedings back
Speaker 1: in two thousand fourteen, which turned out to be just
Speaker 1: as big of a fiasco as my trials did. I
Speaker 1: was turned down for crimacy, and the reason being is
Speaker 1: not only was there a prosecutor from my case on
Speaker 1: the board, Bob Macy's son was as well. And when
Speaker 1: we robbed to their attentions after Hi Bob was denied Clemacy,
Speaker 1: the Clemacy boyd claimed that they had no idea that
Speaker 1: she had been a prosecutor on my case. Did she
Speaker 1: not remember? She knew me really well? And Bob Macy's
Speaker 1: son is there as well. Yeah, still has something to
Speaker 1: do with the billboard today. I'm rarely at a loss
Speaker 1: for words, but that is just ridiculous. I know, why
Speaker 1: don't we have anybody that had anything to do with
Speaker 1: Bob maybe or his office on a parole board that
Speaker 1: deals with that's row inmates. So your clemency was denied,
Speaker 1: but you didn't take that sitting down. In October twenty four,
Speaker 1: I started this campaign. I was writing letters, hundreds of
Speaker 1: letters to everybody. I wrote letters to John McCain, who
Speaker 1: answered me, by the way, who I became friends with,
Speaker 1: and he introduced my case to people here in Oklahoma
Speaker 1: like Tom Koger and others who set up for me
Speaker 1: back then. So, while Richard was fighting for his life,
Speaker 1: other significant events work foot concerning the way in which
Speaker 1: the state planned to kill him and others. Lethal injection.
Speaker 1: Lethal injection, as a method of state sanctioned murder, consists
Speaker 1: of three drugs, a sedative, which depresses the nervous system
Speaker 1: and renders the person unconscious, next, a paralytic which provides
Speaker 1: skeletal and muscular relaxation as well as depresses respiration, and finally,
Speaker 1: a potassium solution which causes cardiac arrest. The most common
Speaker 1: lethal injection drug combination is for the sedative sodium, theopental
Speaker 1: or pentobarbital, then pancyronium bromide as the paralytic, and finally
Speaker 1: potassium chloride, which causes the heart attack. In two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: some American pharma companies halted production of sodium theopental, and
Speaker 1: the European Union enacted a torture regulation that banned the
Speaker 1: export of drugs for the use of lethal injections, starting
Speaker 1: with sodium theopental and later pental barbital so By two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, states were experiencing a shortage of the necessary drugs,
Speaker 1: which affected their ability to carry out death sentences according
Speaker 1: to protocol, Oklahoma began looking for alternatives like medazzo lem
Speaker 1: in place of sodium theo pental. Following this change, the
Speaker 1: forty three minute long botched execution of Clayton Lockett on
Speaker 1: April nine, two thousand and fourteen. Another death row inmate,
Speaker 1: Charles Warner, awaited the same fate that night, just steps
Speaker 1: away from the death chamber, but as a result of
Speaker 1: the horror of Locketts execution, Warners was delayed. After an investigation,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma blamed an inability to find Locketts veins as the
Speaker 1: cause of the botched execution and decided to continue with
Speaker 1: the same drug protocol involving Medazzo lem as a sedative
Speaker 1: prompting Richard, Charles Warner, and nineteen others to sue Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: and eventually they took the case all the way to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court the United States. While this was being litigated,
Speaker 1: Richard's clemency was denied and his campaign from death row
Speaker 1: was just beginning. He got in touch with renowned death
Speaker 1: penalty abolition as Sister Helen Prejean. With his first execution
Speaker 1: date and warners looming in January two thou fifteen, So
Speaker 1: in late he calls Sister Helen, or he sends her
Speaker 1: a letter and says, hey, sister Helen, you know, will
Speaker 1: you be with me when they kill me? And she
Speaker 1: looks into the case a little bit and then she
Speaker 1: calls me. And I got together with another lawyer named
Speaker 1: Mark Olive who does a lot of state habeas work.
Speaker 1: And by now we're out of options. I mean there's
Speaker 1: no court appearances left, clemency has been done. Basically, we're
Speaker 1: out of options. At this point in time, rich comes
Speaker 1: up for an execution date. So Oklahoma sets the date
Speaker 1: for January fifteen, and a lot of people don't know this,
Speaker 1: but in Oklahoma and other states, a period of real
Speaker 1: psychological torture begins prior to execution. Now, I was taken upstairs.
Speaker 1: They take you up thirty five days prior to your execution.
Speaker 1: You have to sit in this room that is so
Speaker 1: brightly lit for twenty four hours a day. Lights never
Speaker 1: go off so bright that I can see a tiny
Speaker 1: ant walking across a dark and gray floor. That's how
Speaker 1: bright that rum is. You're on camera seven, and you
Speaker 1: have a guard sitting outside your door. Seven. You can't
Speaker 1: cover your head, you can't do any of that. This
Speaker 1: is what people have to endure in Oklahoma before they're executed.
Speaker 1: While he and Warner awaited death, the suit continued in litigation,
Speaker 1: and on January fifteen, the group of condemned prisoners petition
Speaker 1: the U. S. Supreme Court for a writ of certier
Speaker 1: ari and stays of their executions. As evidenced by other
Speaker 1: botched executions in Ohio and Arizona. The petitioners argued that
Speaker 1: the medazzalem would not numb the pain that would be
Speaker 1: caused by the other two drugs, so on January the
Speaker 1: lead petitioner, Charles Warner, was denied a stay and executed
Speaker 1: later that day over the descent of four justices, leaving
Speaker 1: Richard as the next in line. Sister Helen and a
Speaker 1: bunch of people were there visiting me. It was the
Speaker 1: day before I'm supposed to be executed. It was funny
Speaker 1: because Sister Helen came like I've seen her head like
Speaker 1: moving up and down in the crowd, and she gave
Speaker 1: me the phone and it was the Vatican. And I
Speaker 1: got stock to the Vatican that day, and as soon
Speaker 1: as I got done, the guards ran everybody out of there,
Speaker 1: and hey, you've done the attorney call. So they set
Speaker 1: me down and gave me the phone, and my attorney said,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court just gave you a stay and you
Speaker 1: are now going to Supreme Court against lethal iningestion. Sister
Speaker 1: Helen was able to mobilize a lot of people and
Speaker 1: put some petitions together, and the Supreme Court, while they
Speaker 1: didn't grant a stay for Charles Warner, based on basically
Speaker 1: the same information on the leafal injection drug, granted rich
Speaker 1: a stay and so he got to stay about twenty
Speaker 1: four hours in advance of his first execut You should
Speaker 1: date to have his case glossop feed growscope before the
Speaker 1: United States Supreme Court, and so there was a whole
Speaker 1: place on all executions in Oklahoma until the Rutling was made.
Speaker 1: On June twenty nine, two fifteen, in the last day
Speaker 1: of the Supreme Court's term, they ruled five to four
Speaker 1: against Richard and the condemned prisoners, allowing Medazzalem as the sedative,
Speaker 1: and Richard's execution date was set for September fifteen, two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, so thirty five days prior the death ritual
Speaker 1: began again. They actually move you to a cell that's
Speaker 1: about four cells away from the actual death chamber, and
Speaker 1: you're in that cell for a few days, and then
Speaker 1: they bring you to the third cell, one closer to
Speaker 1: the death chamber, and they leave you there for a
Speaker 1: few days, and then they bring you to the second cell,
Speaker 1: one more step closer to the death chamber, and then
Speaker 1: they move you to the cell next to the death chamber.
Speaker 1: And if if that's not torture in and of itself,
Speaker 1: by the time you get to that final thing, you
Speaker 1: can see the people coming and going from the death amber.
Speaker 1: You know what's happening, you know what they're preparing, you
Speaker 1: know what they're going to do. And rich was subject
Speaker 1: to that for a long period of time. Because we
Speaker 1: ended up with a stay of execution on September fifteen.
Speaker 1: He had already been subjected to that, he had already
Speaker 1: been brought to that final place. It was two hours
Speaker 1: in advance of the execution that hit that the second
Speaker 1: execution was stopped, and then they we had a two
Speaker 1: weeks stay so that Rich was moved once again, just
Speaker 1: back to where he had been and to and to
Speaker 1: start that whole process over again. So Rich was subjected
Speaker 1: to this incredible emotional torture in advance of the third
Speaker 1: execution date, which was set for September. I was in
Speaker 1: a lit room for fifty four straight days, no darkness whatsoever.
Speaker 1: It's crazy what they put you through. They do mock
Speaker 1: executions in front of you. I'm not trying to compare
Speaker 1: Oklahoma to Isis, but it's no different than what ISIS
Speaker 1: does to people. When they pulled somebody out and put
Speaker 1: a sword to their neck, they act why they're gonna
Speaker 1: chop their head off, And then they stopped and they say, oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna wait for another day, put them back in
Speaker 1: this cell, you know. And then they put the guy
Speaker 1: back in and bring him up the next day and
Speaker 1: keep doing this. I mean, where do we draw the
Speaker 1: line and tortured because this is tortured. My first date,
Speaker 1: I gotta stay the day before my execution. The second
Speaker 1: time I gotta stay hours before my execution. The third
Speaker 1: time I got to stay after my execution was supposed
Speaker 1: to have taken place. And these days came with a
Speaker 1: lot of work done. So for the second one. On
Speaker 1: September fifteenth, few fold motions presenting new evidence, including a
Speaker 1: July nineties seven psyche evaluation showing Sneed was aware of
Speaker 1: the charges against him and that he made no mention
Speaker 1: of Richard, as well as the numerous people's Need confessed
Speaker 1: to along the way that he had acted alone and
Speaker 1: saved his own hide by implicating Richard. But despite all
Speaker 1: of that, on September, Oklahoma Court of Criminal a Fields
Speaker 1: voted three to two to proceed with the execution, and
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court also denied a stay. Then the Governor
Speaker 1: granted a stay on the citing that Oklahoma, contrary to
Speaker 1: lethal injection drug protocol, had received potassium acetate, a freaking
Speaker 1: food preservative, instead of potassium chloride for the cardiac arrest
Speaker 1: inducing portion of the cocktail. So then Richard got a
Speaker 1: thirty seven day stay to November six, two thousand fifteen.
Speaker 1: And it was interesting when that happened because sister Helen
Speaker 1: was outside the prison and she was saying, it's a
Speaker 1: Richard gloss of preservative, because the drug day were going
Speaker 1: to use was actually used as a preservative, you know.
Speaker 1: But I think the scariest thing about that time was
Speaker 1: when the governor at the time hold for a second
Speaker 1: in command who was there google it. When we've gotten
Speaker 1: to a point in a society, I where we google
Speaker 1: how to execute people? Or is it okay to use
Speaker 1: certain drugs that execute people that should just in the
Speaker 1: destinity by itself. It makes no sense to me at
Speaker 1: all that we entrust so many deeply flawed humans with
Speaker 1: the machinery of death. But nevertheless, here we are. So
Speaker 1: on October one, two thousand fifteen, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott
Speaker 1: Prue had asked the Court of Criminal Appeals to issue
Speaker 1: an indepthinite stay of all executions, citing the acquisition of
Speaker 1: the wrong drugs. Then, on October eight, it was revealed
Speaker 1: that Charles Warner had been killed using potassium acetate, the
Speaker 1: food preservative, contrary to protocol D A. G. Prewitt then
Speaker 1: ordered a multi county grand jury investigation, and this put
Speaker 1: a hold on executions in Oklahoma. And with this moratorium,
Speaker 1: the famous documentary and Joe burl and Or who made
Speaker 1: Paradise Lost about the West Memphis Three, got involved to
Speaker 1: help uncover more evidence and make the incredibly powerful docuseries
Speaker 1: Killing Richard Glossop that we've been referencing. I'm Joe Burlinger,
Speaker 1: and I guess they've been talking about my docuseries Killing
Speaker 1: Richard Glossop. I mean, this case, to me is the
Speaker 1: very definition of why there should be no death penalty,
Speaker 1: and it just demonstrates how easily innocent people can be
Speaker 1: put to death. This was a spontaneous act of a
Speaker 1: opportunistic robbery that went awry, and all the evidence suggests that,
Speaker 1: and no evidence points to Richard Glossop, even the fact
Speaker 1: that when they found money on each of them, the
Speaker 1: fact that there was blood on you know, the two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars that Sneed had in his pocket, and Richard's
Speaker 1: money had no blood on it. Here, you have a
Speaker 1: murder for higher plot. And yet he himself justin Sneed
Speaker 1: says in his original statement, and he said it again
Speaker 1: to me when I interviewed him, that he never really
Speaker 1: intended to kill Barry van Trees, He just was hoping
Speaker 1: to kind of immobilize him. Well, then, how is it
Speaker 1: a murder for Higher Plot? I mean, that very basic
Speaker 1: fact makes it impossible to believe his story. So the
Speaker 1: one thing that's Need has been consistent about is that
Speaker 1: he never meant to kill Barry van Trees. So through
Speaker 1: his own repeated admissions, he denies Rich's involvement. Rich was
Speaker 1: supposed to have ordered him, remember, according to the state,
Speaker 1: to rob and kill Barry. But if he never intended
Speaker 1: to kill Barry, then he could not have been operating
Speaker 1: under Rich's authority. Therefore, there was no murder for Higher Plot.
Speaker 1: Richard could never have been involved. I mean, which, Justine Sneed,
Speaker 1: are we supposed to believe the Sneed who says Richard
Speaker 1: told me to do it so I had to do it,
Speaker 1: or the Sneed who never intended to kill Barry ventres
Speaker 1: to despite the alleged quote unquote orders of Richard Closset.
Speaker 1: He can't be both. Not that any of this matters
Speaker 1: to our legal processes, as actual innocence does not entitle
Speaker 1: one to relief. According to the United States Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: So don where do we stand now? So we've got
Speaker 1: several new witnesses, people that nobody has ever heard. We
Speaker 1: know the story now, we heard it from Sneet's mouth
Speaker 1: through at least two or three witnesses. We know what
Speaker 1: happened in this case, and we know that Rich didn't
Speaker 1: have anything to do with this murder at all. And
Speaker 1: so we are ready to go to the pardner in
Speaker 1: Parole Board with this new information. We would go to court,
Speaker 1: but we've already been to court in we lost there.
Speaker 1: There are procedural bars that are in place to keep
Speaker 1: us from even getting a chance to fairly litigate this
Speaker 1: innocence again. So right now the state of Oklahoma is
Speaker 1: set to once again begin the process of killing people.
Speaker 1: There is an end to the current lawsuit that's going
Speaker 1: on with Rich's name on it. Again. It's the success
Speaker 1: of a gloss of be gross And once the court
Speaker 1: makes a ruling on the protocol that they know how
Speaker 1: to kill somebody with whatever drug they use, they're going
Speaker 1: to go ahead and begin to set dates once again.
Speaker 1: And we don't know if Rich will be first. He
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be first, but he was last up
Speaker 1: it's it's entirely possible that he will be the first
Speaker 1: one set for execution, and that could take place sometime
Speaker 1: in the late summer. The worst case scenario, they could
Speaker 1: set a date on July one. I don't even know
Speaker 1: what to say anymore. His fate has essentially been determined
Speaker 1: barring action from the Pearl Board and the Executive branch,
Speaker 1: but his legal faith has been sealed because of technical considerations.
Speaker 1: We had two judges who, based upon the evidence we
Speaker 1: had then, which is a shadow of the evidence that
Speaker 1: we have now at that point in time, two judges
Speaker 1: said we want to give this guy a hearing on
Speaker 1: his innocence claim, but three judges said we won't, simply
Speaker 1: because of finality of judgment. That was their whole point.
Speaker 1: That's the Court's point is we can't let this go
Speaker 1: on forever. We're going to stop it. Like you said,
Speaker 1: innocence doesn't matter. That's the legal posture that we face today.
Speaker 1: Right that awful decision was Harrara versus Collins, where the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court said what I just said, evidence of innocence
Speaker 1: is not enough to stop the wheels of justice from turning,
Speaker 1: and in this case turning right into a state sponsored
Speaker 1: murder of an innocent man named Richard Glass. I'm asking
Speaker 1: everybody to go to say Richard Glass dot com to
Speaker 1: sign the petitions that we have, but also participate in
Speaker 1: everything that we're doing to try to bring justice reform
Speaker 1: so that we can prevent this from happening to to
Speaker 1: other people. This isn't always about one person, and that's
Speaker 1: what I've always tried to make clear to people. This
Speaker 1: is about many innocent people who are facing what I'm facing,
Speaker 1: and I don't want them to face it. I don't
Speaker 1: want them to go through what I went through. We
Speaker 1: got to stand up as a as a society. We
Speaker 1: have to stand up as a people. We have to
Speaker 1: stand up and say, hey, we're not going to tolerate
Speaker 1: this anymore. We've got to change this. We got to
Speaker 1: prevent innocent bunity have been executed, and we got to
Speaker 1: open people's eyes to why this is such a barbaric
Speaker 1: practice and why it should no longer take place. Go
Speaker 1: to save Richard glossip dot com. We'll also have links
Speaker 1: in the bio for action steps that you can take,
Speaker 1: and you know, with that, I want to turn it
Speaker 1: over to YouTube. Guys. Thank you for being here. With
Speaker 1: us today and spreading the word about this awful injustice.
Speaker 1: And now we turn to what we call closing arguments.
Speaker 1: This is a section of the show where I turned
Speaker 1: my microphone off, take back in my chair, leave my
Speaker 1: headphones on, close my eyes, and just listen to whatever
Speaker 1: you have to say that we may have left out,
Speaker 1: or anything you want to share with our audience. So Richard,
Speaker 1: we're going to save you for last and let don
Speaker 1: go first. And again, Richard, I just want you to
Speaker 1: know we're all out here thinking about you. So many
Speaker 1: people are praying for you, and we hope to see
Speaker 1: you free before too long. Over to you. Done well,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jason. I really appreciate you taking the time
Speaker 1: to shine a light on this terrible case and this
Speaker 1: terrible injustice that we are hoping to stop with with
Speaker 1: a hearing later this year. Richard Glossop, simple guy who
Speaker 1: was in love with a young woman. Richard loved his
Speaker 1: job at the best budget in loved Barry van tres
Speaker 1: They had a great relationship. Rich never took any money
Speaker 1: from Barry van Tresse and very respected Rich And a
Speaker 1: terrible murder took place that rich did not have anything
Speaker 1: at all to do with and the wheels of justice
Speaker 1: began to turn in Oklahoma City the way that they
Speaker 1: did back in those days with Bob Macy, and those
Speaker 1: wheels just simply ran over Richard Blossop. He was a
Speaker 1: victim of very very poor lawyering, of over aggressive police work,
Speaker 1: of over aggressive prosecutors who only cared about one thing,
Speaker 1: and that was getting a conviction and getting a death sentence,
Speaker 1: because that was the culture of Oklahoma City at the time.
Speaker 1: Through a series of three letters two the current District Attorney,
Speaker 1: David Prator, we have requested a lot of substantive information
Speaker 1: that we believe would prove that rich Glossop had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with this, and we have received no answers.
Speaker 1: We continue to wait for David Prator. So at this
Speaker 1: point in time, we are we're preparing for a clembency
Speaker 1: hearing that we know we'll take place later this year,
Speaker 1: and we are hoping that people will go to say
Speaker 1: Richard Assip dot com. You can find a petition there
Speaker 1: to the governor and the partner in Pearol Board letting
Speaker 1: those people know that this is wrong, what's what's happening,
Speaker 1: and that the only way to write it is to
Speaker 1: grant rich clemency and to allow us to get back
Speaker 1: into court again. What do you rich Um? You know,
Speaker 1: when I walked in and took that first step on
Speaker 1: aging it on death row, I said that I have
Speaker 1: two choices. I can make peace with death or I
Speaker 1: can let it destroy me. And so I made peace
Speaker 1: with death right then and there, and I just said,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna let it destroy me. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: the same person I was and I am to this day.
Speaker 1: I singing my cell out loud, I laugh, I danced around,
Speaker 1: and guards are always freaking out because I'm the way
Speaker 1: that I am. And I told them, I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I was a happy guy my whole life, and I'm
Speaker 1: not going to let this change who I am because
Speaker 1: we only have one life to live and it's a gift.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to celebrate life no matter where the
Speaker 1: hell I'm at, even in this hole, I'm going to
Speaker 1: celebrate life. I've heard so many stories about people who
Speaker 1: lost it down on un and I've seen it for myself.
Speaker 1: I've witnessed it myself. And there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people with serious mental health issues because you're isolated for
Speaker 1: years and years and years and and it's yeah, it's hard,
Speaker 1: and thankfully I you know, I had my art. I've
Speaker 1: written songs. I've written so many poems. I've written a
Speaker 1: book which I can't wait to get get out there
Speaker 1: to people because it's a book of hope. It's a
Speaker 1: book of showing people that you you do have more
Speaker 1: strengthen you know, and you can take your courage and
Speaker 1: you can move forward and you can have hope at
Speaker 1: the end. And I described the three execution attempt. I
Speaker 1: describe everything because I want people to know no matter
Speaker 1: how bad things yet there's always something good that will
Speaker 1: come from the worst situations you face in life. You
Speaker 1: just gotta fight for it and you've got to make
Speaker 1: sure it happens. So it's we're in a fight. Um,
Speaker 1: we're in a big fight with legislators and people in
Speaker 1: the state of Oklahoma. We're standing up saying we need
Speaker 1: to prevent this and and hopefully we can succeed because
Speaker 1: I do have a lot more like the lifts, and
Speaker 1: I do have a lot more battle to raise. Again,
Speaker 1: the destinility look at like what's happening here in Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: one of the biggest Republican states in the in the country.
Speaker 1: And you have Republicans now staying and up saying we're
Speaker 1: not going to tolerate this anymore. We're not gonna kill
Speaker 1: innocent people. I'm proud of Legislator make Google and Legislator Humphrey,
Speaker 1: and you know, even the local businessman Justin Jackson. I'm
Speaker 1: really proud of these people because they're diehard conservative and
Speaker 1: yet they're standing us for innocence because it's not a
Speaker 1: left thing, and it's not a right thing. It's an
Speaker 1: innocent thing. And we've got to stop using politics in
Speaker 1: justice reform. We all want the right things. If we don't,
Speaker 1: then then you shouldn't be an office. We all want fair,
Speaker 1: we all want justice, and that's why I've always said
Speaker 1: that take the blindfold off of Lady Justice, because that's
Speaker 1: one of the things. It's always weirded me out over
Speaker 1: the years, as you're saying, well, she's finefold folders that
Speaker 1: she could be fair. How can you be fair if
Speaker 1: you can't see what's going on? So take the fine
Speaker 1: fold awful lettera see what's going on and she'll see
Speaker 1: alfair of justice. Really isn't that country. Thank you for
Speaker 1: listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Please support your
Speaker 1: local innocence projects and go to the link in our
Speaker 1: bio to see how you can help. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne and Kevin Wardens.
Speaker 1: The music on the show, as always, is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. Podcast. Wrangful Conviction with Jason Flam is a
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
Speaker 1: Company Number one