Oklahoma death row inmate’s lawyers say prosecutors intimidating witnesses

Glossip was scheduled for execution last week, but an Oklahoma court delayed it after his attorneys said they had new evidence.

Also on Wednesday, the Tulsa World reported that Prater had rebuked numerous claims from Glossip’s lawyers, saying, “The time will come when it will be clear to everyone that everything that the defense lawyers and their witnesses are saying are lies”.

Richard Glossip was convicted of murdering his boss, Barry Van Treese, after Justin Sneed, who carried out the killing, testified he had been hired to do it.

The attorneys said Michael Scott, who signed an affidavit saying he heard convicted murderer Justin Sneed brag about setting Glossip up for the crime, was arrested on Tuesday on a warrant for a $200 unpaid fine and failure to complete community service connected to a recent drunk driving arrest. “This room was equipped with a camera, although Mr. Scott did not know if it was turned on or not”.

Prater told Scott that he had learned Scott may be in violation of the terms of his suspended sentence and asked authorities to issue a warrant for his arrest, the notice alleges.

Glossip’s attorneys claim Scott was targeted and intimidated by the state, specifically David Prater.

A spokesman for Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s office, which is defending Glossip’s first-degree murder conviction and death sentence, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Monday. In the court filing that man says after he told DA Prater he wouldn’t talk to him a warrant was also issued for his arrest.

When Joseph Tapley’s evidence was made public, attorneys say that the state threatened to revoke his suspended sentence for a drink-driving offence.

The discover doesn’t embrace element about Tapley’s potential testimony however says that “intimidating conduct … by the State must be instantly stopped”.

Under Oklahoma law, attorneys argued, a new execution date must be set either 30 or 60 days after a stay has been denied or vacated, not 14 days after as the court had done, Glossip’s lawyers said in the filing.

His case garnered global attention after Hollywood actress Susan Sarandon, who played a nun in the movie “Dead Man Walking“, took up his cause. The lady Sarandon portrayed within the film, anti-demise penalty advocate Sister Helen Prejean, has served as Glossip’s religious adviser and steadily visited him in jail.