WEBVTT - Death Row Inmate Win & Abortion Buffer Zones 0:00:02.880 --> 0:00:07.120 This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosseo from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:11.800 It was an extremely rare victory for a death row 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:15.960 prisoner at the Supreme Court, but then Richard Glossop's case 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:20.759 was unusual in many respects. Glossip has been on Oklahoma's 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:24.520 death row for twenty seven years. He's been scheduled to 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:28.560 be executed nine times and has eaten his last meal 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:33.200 three times, once avoiding execution only because of a mix 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:35.960 up in the lethal drugs that were to be administered. 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:40.279 Through decades of appeals, including to the Supreme Court, Glossop 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:43.440 has maintained his innocence of the murder of his boss, 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:48.760 But then in twenty twenty three, an unlikely ally joined 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:53.200 his appeals to have his conviction overturned. The state's Republican 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:57.840 Attorney General, Gettner Drummond, who's an advocate of the death penalty, 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:01.840 after an investigation. In review of the trial record and 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:06.320 the box of documents prosecutors had withheld from Glossop's attorney, 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:10.320 Drummond said the conviction could no longer stand because the 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:14.880 prosecution had withheld evidence favorable to the defense and failed 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:18.199 to correct false testimony at trial. I do not believe 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:20.640 that Richard Blossop is innocent. 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.280 I believe him to be guilty, but I believe him 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:24.880 to not have been given a fair trial. 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:30.600 This week, the Supreme Court agreed that misconduct by prosecutors 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:35.440 had violated Glossop's constitutional rights, and the Court threw out 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:39.679 his conviction, with the liberal justices joined by conservatives Brett 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:44.840 Cavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts. My guest is Cliff Sloane, 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:49.160 a professor of criminal justice at Georgetown Law. He's argued 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:52.280 and won a death penalty case before the Supreme Court. 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:56.240 A death penalty case before the Supreme Court. The Oklahoma 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:01.120 ag said he wasn't surprised by the Supreme Court's decision, but, 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:06.640 knowing how this court denies virtually all execution appeals, were 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:08.200 you surprised, No. 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.560 I wasn't surprised by it, but I was heartened by it. 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:15.640 I wasn't surprised by it because I thought on the merits, 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:20.280 the case for Glossop and the Supreme Court was so strong, 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:25.079 and it seemed in the oral argument that this is 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:29.359 we're clearly favoring Golossop's claim. A couple of them is 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.200 Thomas and Alito were clearly hostile, and then there were 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:37.040 a few that we couldn't really tell exactly. But as 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:40.600 you said, the Supreme Court has been extremely hostile to 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:44.840 claims raised by death row defendants in recent years. I 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:49.360 think unfortunately so, and I think unjustifiably so. And so 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:53.720 it was far from a sure thing that the Supreme 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:58.839 Court was going to reach this decision, even though as 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.640 I mentioned, I think that the merits for Glossop were 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:07.000 extremely strong. So it wasn't a total surprise, but it 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.440 also was far from a foregone conclusion. 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:14.480 Tell us about the unusual aspects of Glossop's case. 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:19.480 One thing that's very unusual about Glossop's case is that 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:25.120 you had the Republican Attorney General of Oklahoma, who generally 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:28.760 is very much in favor of the death penalty, very 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:32.440 strongly saying that he did not get a fair trial, 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:35.920 and of course the death sentence that went with it 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:39.440 was unfair and that he should have a new trial, 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:45.240 and that Gossop was right that there had been prosecutorial misconduct, 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:50.200 very important misconduct by the prosecutors that prevented him from 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:54.040 having a fair trial, and that required setting aside this 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:57.520 conviction and the death sentence and getting a new trial. 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.760 So you had a unanimity, had a census by both 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:06.240 Blossop and by the state, by the prosecutors that his 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:09.680 conviction and death sentence were unfair and could not stand. 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:14.840 And yet even with that consensus view, and even with 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:19.000 the strength of their reasons for that, the Oklahoma Court 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:22.120 of Criminal Appeals, the highest court in Oklahoma on criminal matters, 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.960 rejected that position and said that the conviction is going 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:29.839 to stand and he's going to be executed. And so 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:33.320 it was this sort of remarkable situation where you had 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:38.719 the state court rejecting the views even of the prosecutor, 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:42.520 which was sharing the view of the defendant that under 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.880 the constitution he was entitled to a new trial. Now, 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:47.960 you know, one of the things, this is not the 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:51.680 only time that this has happened in recent years, and 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:55.479 one that got a lot of attention last year was 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.160 the case of Marcellus Williams in Missouri, and who had 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:05.719 a long innocence claim and the local prosecutor, the office 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:09.880 that had prosecuted him and secured the death sentence, agreed 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:14.280 that he should not be executed. And yet the Missouri 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:17.719 courts rejected that, and the Supreme Court did not intervene, 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.520 and that has happened in some other circumstances also, So 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:25.200 it's very striking in the Glossop case, but it actually 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.839 reflects the kind of pervasive problem that we have right 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:34.440 now when state courts are rejecting the consensus view of 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:39.719 prosecutors and defendants that the individual didn't get a fair 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:43.880 trial or didn't get a death sentence fairly imposed, and 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:48.359 the state courts just barrel ahead you upholding the conviction 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:53.080 and ordering the execution. Now, sometimes what you have, and 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.680 this happens with Marcellus Williams, sometimes you have a bit 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:58.960 of a division on the state side where you have 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.440 the local prosecut for example, saying that it should be 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.240 set aside, and then you have the state attorney general 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:08.400 trying to kind of intervene and say no, no, no, 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:11.359 we think the execution should go forward. You didn't have 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:14.120 that in the Glossop case, and there was nobody from 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:17.240 the state who was saying that the conviction should be 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:20.520 upheld and that the execution should go forward. But this 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:22.839 is a problem that comes up, and it's kind of 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:28.320 surprising and troubling. I think that state courts are rejecting 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:33.600 the positions of the prosecutors when they're saying, yes, the 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:36.480 defendant is right, and either the conviction shouldn't stand or 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:38.159 the execution shouldn't go forward. 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:43.040 Justice Sonia Sotomayua wrote the majority opinion. Will you explain 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:44.279 her reasoning. 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:48.000 Well, this case was a bit of an unusual case 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:52.640 to begin with, because it involved mister Golossop's conviction for 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:56.240 murder and death sentence, even though there's no question he 0:06:56.440 --> 0:07:01.760 wasn't involved in the actual physical commission of the murder, 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:06.080 and the case against the Glossop depended entirely on the 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:12.480 testimony of an individual who said that Glossop had recruited 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:16.720 him to commit the murder, and there was no other 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:21.760 direct evidence that gossip was involved in planning the murder 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:26.400 in any way. And yet it came out later that 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:33.280 the individual whose testimony was so critical in implicating Glossop, 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:39.320 he lied on the stand, and that the prosecution knew 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:41.960 that it was false testimony, and what it was about 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:47.200 was that he had taken lithium, and what he testified 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:50.920 to was that he had never been treated by a psychiatrist, 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:56.040 and he had no mental health problems or issues, and 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:59.840 that he had received the lithium as a mistake when 0:07:59.880 --> 0:08:02.800 he requested something for a cold. And one of the 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.120 things that came out years later, and that was kind 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:07.320 of the heart of the case in the Supreme Court, 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.600 was that the prosecutor had in her notes of a 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:17.360 conversation with him a reference to lithium and to the 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:21.440 name of the psychiatrist at the facility where he was 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:27.600 being incarcerated, and the medical records reflected that he had 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:34.360 been prescribed lithium by a psychiatrist and had bipolar disorder, 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.520 And this would have been very, very important for the 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:42.800 jury to understand in terms of evaluating his testimony, both 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:46.840 in terms of his credibility, and again, the entire case 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.240 against Gossop depended on his credibility, and here he blatantly 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:55.240 lied about the circumstances of his receiving lithium and whether 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.440 he had ever been treated by a psychiatrist, and also 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:04.160 possible patients that they might draw about whether he would 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.840 have acted impulsively and whether it could have been connected 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:12.560 to his psychological difficulty. So it is extremely important evidence. 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:15.480 That was the view of the majority, and there's a 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:19.120 Supreme Court case going back to the nineteen fifties called napoo, 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:24.360 which says that the prosecution cannot knowingly put on false 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:29.040 testimony and that if there is a false testimony that 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:32.560 the prosecution knows about, it has to correct that before 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:36.320 the jury, and if not, it's a violation of the 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:40.080 defendant's constitutional rights, it's a violation of due process. And 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:44.439 so Glossop's argument in the Oklahoma Attorney General agreed, this 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:49.040 is a classic open and shut napoo violation. The only 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:53.640 witness against him gave false testimony. We've got this evidence 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.839 in the records that shows that the prosecutor she knew 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:01.360 it was false testimony, and yet she didn't do anything 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.160 to correct it. So that was the view of justice. 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.520 So the mayor and the majority justices. 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:12.560 Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented, Amy Cony Barrett concurred 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:15.920 in part, dissented in part. Thomas said that the High 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:20.640 Court had no authority to override Oklahoma's state courts. 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.600 Well, so there were two issues in the case. There 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:27.080 was a procedural issue and a substantive issue. And we've 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:30.040 been talking about the substantive issue about the merits of 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:34.520 the napok claim. But it also is the case that 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:41.320 if a state court decision rests entirely on a state ground, 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:45.640 what they call an adequate and independent state ground, then 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:48.800 that's a sufficient basis for it. So, for example, let's 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:52.400 say the state says that a brief has to be 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:56.680 filed within thirty days, and somebody filed it ninety days later, 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:59.280 and the state says, we're not going to consider it 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.600 because it violates did our state rule? Well, that's been 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.840 held to be an adequate and independent state ground. And 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:10.480 so here the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals said a 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:13.080 lot of different things that the oral argument, Justice Stagan 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.160 said they were basically thrown in the kitchen sink, but 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:21.080 they made some reference to some of the state court rules. 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:26.440 And so one of the arguments that was made by 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:32.079 a lawyer whose Supreme Court appointed to defend the decision 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:35.240 of the Oklahoma Court or Criminal Appeals, which is common 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.440 for the Supreme Court to do if the parties are 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:43.200 in agreement and nobody's defending the lower court decision. So 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:45.960 that person who is appointed by the Supreme Court said, well, 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:50.040 there's an adequate and independent state ground here, and so 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:55.079 you don't even reach the federal constitutional issue. And all 0:11:55.160 --> 0:12:00.560 of the justices except for Justice Thomas and Alito rejected 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:04.480 that view and said that no, their view even of 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:07.800 the application of the state rules was based on their 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.920 view that there wasn't a NAPOU violation, that it was 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:15.080 quote unquote meritless, and that's a federal constitutional issue, so 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:18.920 there's not an adequate and independent state procedural ground. But 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.760 Justice Thomas and Justice Alito said no, they thought that 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:26.120 there was an adequate and independent state ground. There was 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:31.760 a sufficient reliance on that state rule, which included a 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.440 provision that you can't raise an issue that could have 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:38.000 been raised earlier, and in their view, it could have 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:41.120 been raised earlier. So that was the arguments that he 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:43.360 was making there. And you know, by the way, well, 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:45.599 and we're talking about the lineup of the justices, we 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:49.120 should just mention that it was eight justices who decided this. 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:52.800 Justice Coursich didn't participate because when he was a Court 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:55.920 of Appeals judge, he had been involved in an earlier 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.520 stage of the Glossop proceeding. So the only two justices 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:02.880 who thought there was a procedural bar to considering it 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:04.600 were Justices Thomas and Alito. 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:08.920 Coming up next, will Glossop be tried again you're listening 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:14.240 to Bloomberg. This week, the Supreme Court granted Oklahoma death 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:18.720 row inmate Richard Glossop a new trial, finding that misconduct 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:24.080 by prosecutors violated his constitutional rights at his trial. The 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:28.160 Court threw out the conviction, agreeing with Oklahoma's Republican Attorney 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:32.680 General that the prosecution withheld evidence favorable to the defense 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:37.320 and failed to correct false testimony at trial. Two conservative 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:42.600 justices dissented. I've been talking to Georgetown law professor Cliff Sloane. 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:46.880 In his dissent, Clarence Thomas said, there's no reason to 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:52.839 think that disclosing the bipolar disorder of the state's star 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:57.040 witness would have affected the outcome of the trial. I'm 0:13:57.080 --> 0:13:59.880 not sure how he can come to that kind of conclusion, 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.800 especially because you never know what's going to affect the 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:06.679 credibility of a witness in the eyes of the jury. 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:11.280 Is there any set of circumstances where Thomas and Alito 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.160 would rule against the death penalty. 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:19.520 Well, you know, they generally have been extremely hostile to 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:25.720 capital defendants, and even in a case where Justice Alito 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:28.800 did join almost all of the other members of the 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:32.120 court in ruling for a capital defendants, but he wrote 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:36.400 a very narrow concurrence in the judgment where he basically said, 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.360 you know this case and this case only, but that 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:41.800 you know brings up a very important point not just 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.200 about Justice Thomas and Justice Alito, but about the Supreme 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:49.320 Court as a whole that relates to Glossop and this 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:53.880 overall picture with the death penalty, because since the modern 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:58.200 era of the death penalty began in the mid nineteen seventies, 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:02.400 there have been two two one hundred people who have 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:07.040 been exonerated on death row. Two hundred people who were 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:12.440 convicted and sentenced to death and had death penalties hanging 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.680 over their heads and then were found to be innocent. 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:22.200 That is a truly astonishing and deeply troubling fact. And 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:26.080 it is a fact two hundred people since the nineteen 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:30.920 seventies sentenced to death who were exonerated. And yet the 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:39.680 Supreme Court very regularly is raising and constructing extremely complicated 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:44.880 procedural obstacles that make it very difficult and in some 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:52.200 cases impossible, for defendants to raige claims to have federal 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:57.000 courts examine the merits of their constitutional claims, even when 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:01.840 those claims relate to innocence and this very very strange 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:05.360 dichotomy where on the one hand, you've got the Supreme 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:12.400 Court majority creating these extremely difficult procedural obstacles that prevent 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:15.400 people from having their claims heard, and on the other hand, 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:21.440 we're seeing these very serious problems with two hundred exonerations 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:23.520 in recent years. And that's not the only problem with 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.720 the death penalty. I mean, there's a tremendous problem with 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:32.240 ineffective assistance of console, with terrible lawyering. Almost invariably somebody 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:36.359 who gets the death penalty, there's been terrible lawyering involved. 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:41.200 The Supreme Court's making it extremely difficult for somebody to 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:44.800 raise that claim. And in one case a couple of 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:49.400 years ago, the Supreme Court majority said, well, the Senate, 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:55.440 you're stuck with the record that you're completely inadequate lawyer 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.960 created for you, and you can't add to that record 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:04.560 instances of lawyers literally sleeping at times during capital trials 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:07.080 where courts have left that in place. So you have 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:12.160 this very strange dichotomy of the Supreme Court creating these 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:17.200 enormous procedural obstacles on the one hand, and this record 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:19.400 of abuses with the death penalty. 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:23.480 On the other turn, oklahom Attorney General Gentner Drummond said 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:27.880 at a news conference after this decision that I do 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:31.480 not believe Richard Glossip is innocent, and he said that 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.760 his office is going to review the ruling, visit the 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:39.160 family members determine the most appropriate course of action because 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.359 they have to decide now whether to try him again. 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:45.760 How do you try a case twenty eight years later 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.959 when there was never any physical evidence to begin with. 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:52.600 Now there's new evidence that the state's star witness lied 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:56.240 on the stand, wanted to recount his testimony so he 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:58.080 can be impeached. I mean, how do you try a 0:17:58.119 --> 0:17:58.840 case like that. 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.399 Look, I I think it's going to be extremely difficult 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.400 for them to try the case, and we'll see what 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:09.160 charges they would bring. But for the reasons that you mentioned, 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:11.760 of course, it's a long time ago, but also it's 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:16.160 the very reason why this information was so important, because 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:20.399 the fact that the only witness against him blatantly lies, 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:23.840 you know, he is subject to impeachment on that basis, 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.560 and so I would think there'll be enormous problems in 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:28.840 trying the case. But I will say one thing about 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:32.880 the Oklahoma Attorney General I think he deserves tremendous credits because, 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:35.720 first of all, again he's somebody who very much supports 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.120 the death penalty and yet took a very principled stand 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.560 here that no, this man did not receive a fair 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:46.679 trial and both his conviction and death should not remain 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:49.919 in place. But in addition to that, this is all 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:54.320 in the context where his official position is the gloss 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:56.920 of his guilty, but that he should get a fair trial. 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:00.000 You know, it's a Supreme Court argument. Representing the state 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:04.919 of Oklahoma was Paul Clement, a former Solicitor General for 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:08.879 the United States in the George W. Bush administration, in 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.679 one of the preeminent and leading Supreme Court advocates of 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.520 our time. And you know, Paul Clement said that in 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:18.200 the oral argument, he said, we don't think mister Glossop 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:20.320 is a poster boy for innocence, and we're going to 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:23.359 try to retry him. And I think that if the 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:26.240 Supreme Court does the right thing he said, which we 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:28.439 urge you to do in terms of setting aside this 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.560 conviction of death, sense, we're going to try and convict 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:35.439 him again. And so I just think that really speaks 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:38.960 to the principal stance that the Oklahoma Attorney General took 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:42.560 here exactly what you want a public official to do, 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:46.520 regardless of political affiliation, to say, I've looked at the facts, 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:49.719 I've looked at the evidence. This man did not receive 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.560 a fair trial. Yes, he's guilty in our view. Of course, 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:56.640 Blossop very much disputes that, and we're going to try 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:59.560 to go after him again with a fair trial. That's 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:01.439 been there position throughout. I mean, the. 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:04.120 Victim's family wants this tried it again as a death 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:08.600 penalty case. Do you think there'll be pressure not only 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:13.160 on the Oklahoma Attorney General, but on the Oklahoma County 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:15.720 District attorney to try the case again. 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:21.440 Death penalty cases, by their nature, they are always very 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.560 very high profile and with a lot of public pressure. 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:30.320 It's one of the reasons it's very important for public officials, 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:34.840 even in that kind of situation to act in principled ways. 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:39.919 But they're always very very controversial situations with you know, 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:45.200 horrible crimes that are at issue, you know, victims' families. 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:48.360 There can be a wide variety. I mean, there's sometimes 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:52.040 is a situation where victims' families are actually against the 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.760 death penalty for a lot of reasons that they don't 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:57.960 think the taking of life justifies the taking of life. 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:01.080 They also think accurate lea it's going to lead to 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:04.879 a much more prolonged and difficult process for them. And 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:09.200 then you have some victims' families who are in favor 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:11.800 of the death penalty and who you know, obviously have 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:17.560 suffered extremely difficult anguish of losing a loved one, and 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:22.080 the victim's family here is being very aggressive in supporting 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:26.320 the death penalty for Glossop and in supporting their view 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:29.760 that he is guilty. And in fact, they filed in 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:35.040 the Supreme Court and amicus brief arguing very strongly against 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:40.440 the Oklahoma Attorney General and Glossop in saying that the 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:45.320 notes of the prosecutor were being misinterpreted. They actually attached 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:49.959 new documents that hadn't been part of the record and 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:54.760 made new arguments, and Justice Thomas's descent relies at times 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:57.760 on that brief, and the majority took pains to say 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:01.240 those documents were not in the record. So in this case, 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:05.680 it certainly is true that you have a very very 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:09.600 active victims family that's going to be pushing both for 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:11.320 retrial and the death penalty. 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:15.359 Is this the strangest saga for a death row inmates 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:18.720 case or are there others that are just as bad? 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:22.520 Oh, there are many that are just as bad, and 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:25.760 in a number of ways. I mean, first of all, 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:31.080 as we were talking about the problem of people turning 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:37.640 out to be innocent and also the problem of prosecutorial misconducts, 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:41.520 both of those are rampant in death penalty cases, and 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:45.040 there's actually a high correlation between the two. That's frequently 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.359 when somebody has been wrongly convicted, it's because there's been 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.800 prosecutorial misconduct. But those aren't the only kinds of claims. 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:55.880 There are all sorts of other claims that turn out 0:22:55.880 --> 0:23:01.560 to be meritorious, including in effective assistance of console, including 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:05.560 problems connected with race. And you know, some people who 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:09.760 are in favor of the death penalty complain about the 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:12.840 length of time that it takes, and that includes some 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:16.679 of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court. You know, 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:19.760 Glossop previously had a case in the Supreme Court where 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:25.080 he was objecting to lethal injection as cruel and usual, 0:23:26.119 --> 0:23:28.920 that it was an untried procedure that was going to 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:32.400 make it feel like somebody was being burned alive, and 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:37.600 the Supreme Court majority rejected that claim, and both in 0:23:37.640 --> 0:23:40.719 the oral argument and in the opinion talked about this 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:47.440 guerrilla campaign against the death penalty and expressed real frustration 0:23:48.040 --> 0:23:52.880 and impatience with efforts to impede the death penalty. Now, 0:23:53.040 --> 0:23:57.200 the other side of that is that the reason that 0:23:57.240 --> 0:23:59.640 these issues come up so much is because there are 0:23:59.800 --> 0:24:03.880 so many pervasive and fundamental problems with the death penalty, 0:24:04.119 --> 0:24:07.560 and frequently it takes a while to get them litigated, 0:24:07.720 --> 0:24:12.840 including because there's frequently such poor lawyering at the trial level. 0:24:13.119 --> 0:24:16.040 And yet frequently there is a kind of vindication in 0:24:16.119 --> 0:24:20.400 the end for the death row inmate. Obviously not always, 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:25.840 And although we have fewer executions each year and fewer 0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:29.879 death sentences than we've had in the past, and lower 0:24:30.359 --> 0:24:34.520 public support, and the death sentences that are handed out 0:24:34.520 --> 0:24:38.800 and the executions that occur are in a relatively small 0:24:39.000 --> 0:24:43.760 handful of jurisdictions, but there are executions that are going forwards. 0:24:43.760 --> 0:24:46.080 And I'm certainly not suggesting by any means that in 0:24:46.119 --> 0:24:49.800 every case the defendant ultimately prevails, But in many of 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:53.320 these circumstances where it takes a long time for the litigation, 0:24:53.840 --> 0:24:57.600 it turns out, as in this case, that the defendant 0:24:57.720 --> 0:25:01.800 has very strong territorious claims and that it would be 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:06.560 completely unconstitutional either to uphold the convictions or to proceed 0:25:06.720 --> 0:25:09.000 with the death sentence. So, I mean, there are some 0:25:09.240 --> 0:25:12.720 unique twists and turns in mister Glossop's case, but the 0:25:12.760 --> 0:25:18.159 idea of this sort of prolonged saga and very very 0:25:18.320 --> 0:25:21.000 deep and troubling errors coming up along the way is 0:25:21.040 --> 0:25:22.800 far from unique to his case. 0:25:23.119 --> 0:25:25.560 Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. 0:25:26.400 --> 0:25:31.040 That's Professor Cliff Sloan of Georgetown Law. The Supreme Court 0:25:31.119 --> 0:25:35.159 dealt a set that to abortion opponents this week, refusing 0:25:35.200 --> 0:25:39.000 to reconsider a two thousand decision that let states and 0:25:39.119 --> 0:25:43.600 cities create protective zones to shield patients from being approached 0:25:43.640 --> 0:25:48.120 near clinic entrances. The justices turned away two appeals that 0:25:48.359 --> 0:25:52.719 argue the restrictions outside clinics violate the free speech rights 0:25:52.760 --> 0:25:55.800 of abortion opponents who want to talk to women as 0:25:55.800 --> 0:26:00.679 they enter the facilities. Two of the most conservative justices dissented. 0:26:01.040 --> 0:26:03.960 Joining me is an expert in abortion law, Mary Ziegler, 0:26:04.040 --> 0:26:07.439 a professor at UC Davis Law School. Mary tell us 0:26:07.480 --> 0:26:12.199 about that two thousand decision that allowed buffer zones outside 0:26:12.240 --> 0:26:13.280 abortion clinics. 0:26:13.680 --> 0:26:16.159 So this is part of this series of rulings on 0:26:16.200 --> 0:26:20.760 this topic called Hill versus Colorado. Hill was about a 0:26:20.840 --> 0:26:25.000 Colorado law that was kind of prototypical of the era 0:26:25.119 --> 0:26:28.320 that made it unlawful for anyone who was within one 0:26:28.400 --> 0:26:31.720 hundred feet of a healthcare facilities entrance to knowingly come 0:26:31.760 --> 0:26:35.280 within eight feet of another person unless the person they 0:26:35.280 --> 0:26:39.040 were approaching consented. And you know, the idea was either 0:26:39.200 --> 0:26:41.720