Her Mentor Sent Richard Glossip to Death Row. Can She Give Him a Fair Trial?

Inside her chambers at the Oklahoma County Courthouse Judge Susan Stallings was defending her refusal to step down from the third trial of Richard Glossip when she made a startling admission to his defense attorneys It was September and Glossip s legal crew had just persuaded a different judge to recuse herself from the situation the second Oklahoma City judge to do so since August Like Stallings both judges were former prosecutors Both had stepped down due to their ties to the Oklahoma County District Attorney s Office Now Stallings was explaining why she presumed that she could be impartial in presiding over the high-profile trial To do so however Stallings needed to address her relationship with Fern Smith the former Oklahoma City prosecutor who first sent Glossip to death row Glossip s lawyers already knew that Stallings had worked for Smith during her own time at the Oklahoma County District Attorney s Office in the early s And they knew that Stallings had gone on to praise Smith as a formative influence When I started in the DA s office right out of law school Fern Smith taught me that we were to seek justice not just convictions Stallings described Briefcase a publication of the Oklahoma County Bar Association upon taking the bench in I ve never forgotten that But now Stallings was volunteering a new bit of information about her connection to Smith We got a really good deal on the airfare We took a trip Stallings described the lawyers There was a group of us that took a trip The year was and Glossip had of late been charged with masterminding the brutal killing of his boss Barry Van Treese at an Oklahoma City motel The evidence against Glossip was thin prosecutors were relying on the word of a -year-old motel employee named Justin Sneed who admitted to beating Van Treese to death with a baseball bat but claimed that Glossip had coerced him into doing it As Glossip sat in the county jail insisting he was innocent Stallings was apparently vacationing in Spain with Smith the lead prosecutor in the event If the judge s revelation supported the development for her recusal Stallings seemed intent on downplaying its significance The vacation had included a bunch of people from the DA s office she explained We got a really good deal on the airfare The colleagues landed in Madrid and rented cars to drive to Costa del Sol and Gibraltar During the ride to Gibraltar Stallings stated Smith wasn t even in the same car with me Defense attorney Corbin Brewster petitioned Stallings if she had discussed any of the cases Smith was handling at the DA s office while they were in Spain Good Lord no Stallings replied That s not the point of a vacation The exchange between Stallings and Glossip s attorneys took place during a closed-door proceeding known as a Rule hearing whose purpose is to ask a judge to recuse themselves from a episode A transcript is attached to a subsequent defense motion reiterating the recusal request and arguing that there is an objectively and constitutionally intolerable vulnerability that Judge Stallings cannot impartially judge issues that must be addressed before this situation can proceed Under Oklahoma s Code of Judicial Conduct judges are supposed to be disqualified from cases whenever the judge s impartiality might reasonably be questioned But the decision to recuse is up to the judge Related Explosive New Evidence Points to Richard Glossip s Innocence Why Is Oklahoma Still Trying to Kill Him All trials are supposed to be overseen by an independent arbiter who can be fair to both sides This would seem especially urgent in Glossip s event which has famously laid bare disturbing misconduct in the Oklahoma County DA s office Twice convicted and sentenced to die for a crime he swore he did not commit Glossip spent years facing execution before definitively seeing his conviction vacated by the U S Supreme Court which ascertained that his situation was rooted in false testimony and prosecutorial misconduct Not only did prosecutors fail to correct false testimony by Sneed the justices also determined that additional conduct by the prosecution further undermines confidence in the verdict This conduct includes the destruction of evidence between Glossip s trial and his retrial that defense lawyers trace back to Smith Smith originated the State s theory decided to pursue the death penalty oversaw key early investigative decisions and controlled the flow of evidence to the defense they wrote in the recusal motion At the Rule hearing Brewster advised Stallings that Glossip s legal company planned to challenge the state s affair through pretrial hearings and that the defense would argue that Smith informed Oklahoma City detectives to destroy the evidence Do you have any concerns about being impartial with respect to Fern Smith s credibility or whether she engaged in misconduct he demanded No Stallings revealed I went from being an advocate at the District Attorney s Office to being an impartial arbiter on this bench she described Brewster And I take that very seriously in the very marrow of my bones Read Our Complete Coverage Murder at the Motel The question of Stallings s impartiality will be at the heart of an evidentiary hearing on October in Oklahoma County District Court where Glossip s attorneys plan to probe the judge s connections to the Oklahoma County DA s office The extent of Judge Stallings s true relationship with Fern Smith is unclear they wrote in a filing on October The hearing is necessary to discern the extent of this relationship The hearing is peculiar in that Stallings will be considering testimony about her own ability to be impartial and ultimately rule on whether or not to recuse herself from Glossip s incident Under Oklahoma law if she again refuses to step down Glossip s legal gang can turn to the chief judge of the county where the episode is pending followed by the state Supreme Court Although the court docket shows several subpoenas sent to unnamed bystanders it is not entirely clear who will take the stand at the hearing Among the bulk key anticipated bystanders is Smith herself as well as her former boss former Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater who once called Glossip s innocence claim a bullshit PR campaign Prater who served as elected DA from until hired Stallings as a prosecutor in the second time she was employed at the office Stallings worked under Prater until the year she won her referendum to Oklahoma County s criminal court Stallings will be considering testimony about her own ability to be impartial and ultimately rule on whether or not to recuse herself from Glossip s matter It was during these same years that Prater went to extreme lengths to keep Glossip s conviction intact The occurrence dates back to a notorious era in Oklahoma City when the DA s office was under the leadership of Robert Cowboy Bob Macy who won death sentences during his tenure and became known for his overzealous prosecutions Prater who worked under Macy took it upon himself as DA to defend Glossip s conviction at all costs using the same kinds of tactics that made his predecessor so controversial As Glossip faced execution in Prater was accused of intimidating onlookers who came forward with new information Glossip s defense squad does not claim that Stallings had anything to do with Prater s actions at the time But they argue that her broader relationship with Prater is cause for concern Although Stallings insisted at the Rule hearing that she would treat Prater like I do anybody else Glossip s lawyers argue that as with Smith Stallings cannot be impartial in determining Prater s credibility if and when he is called to answer for his conduct in the situation Related In Shocking Move Oklahoma AG Decides to Retry Richard Glossip for Murder The evidentiary hearing comes nearly five months after Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond who is running for governor stunned Glossip s advocates by announcing that he would retry Glossip for first-degree murder After spending years fighting to prevent Glossip s execution testifying on his behalf at a clemency hearing then joining his attorneys in challenging the development before the Supreme Court Drummond s decision came despite a lack of reliable evidence to prove the state s situation It was also an apparent betrayal of a secret deal the attorney general had previously made with Glossip s attorney Don Knight to swiftly resolve the scenario and let his client walk free Glossip s attorneys have repeatedly argued that their client cannot receive a fair trial let alone in a courtroom where the presiding judge once worked for the very same office behind his discredited conviction The corruption at the root of Glossip s event was part of a longstanding civilization of misconduct in the Oklahoma County District Attorney s Office they write During the Rule hearing Brewster reported the defense club is seeking to recuse any judge who served in the Oklahoma County DA s Office In their reply to Glossip s recusal motion prosecutors argue that his legal club vastly overstates Stallings s connection to Prater Glossip s attorneys invoke Stallings s friendship and admiration for her former boss they write but such a description is a leap As for Stallings s connection to Smith the prosecutors write that the defendant has conjured an enduring friendship that is just incompatible with reality Putting aside a court appearance in a different circumstance earlier this year they write Stallings and Smith were last in contact years ago when both happened to be members of a group trip abroad Yet the court appearance cited by prosecutors is a good example of the possible conflict Glossip s lawyers describe Before Stallings was assigned to preside over Glossip s retrial her impartiality had already been questioned in the occurrence of Tremane Wood who was also sentenced to death in Oklahoma City in and who faces execution on November Wood won an evidentiary hearing earlier this year to determine whether prosecutors committed misconduct in his episode The prosecutor in question was Fern Smith Stallings was appointed to preside over the hearing Wood s attorneys requested that Stallings recuse herself from the hearing As in Glossip s development she refused In an affidavit subsequently attached to Glossip s recusal motion federal general defender Amanda Bass Castro Alves described a scene with striking parallels to the Rule hearing in Glossip s situation During an in-chambers discussion Judge Stallings stated that she had been on a trip with Fern Smith Bass Castro Alves noted I don t specifically recall where they traveled to or the timeframe of the trip However I do recall that Judge Stallings referred to the trip as a hen do It s not clear whether the trip was the same international vacation Stallings disclosed to Glossip s attorneys A hen do is akin to a bachelorette party a gathering of the closest friends of a bride-to-be which is not at all how Stallings described the trip to Spain The contrast in two descriptions suggests that either the nature of the trip to Spain was different than what Judge Stallings disclosed or that there have been multiple trips with different purposes and tone Glossip s attorneys argue Under either circumstance it is reasonable to conclude that Judge Stallings could not fairly and impartially rule on the credibility of Ms Smith Stallings presided over Wood s evidentiary hearing in April and ultimately ruled against him Glossip s lawyers argue that Stallings s opinion in the situation evinces loyalty toward Smith a position supported by attorney and scholar Abbe Smith a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center who specializes in legal ethics In a summary attached as an exhibit to the latest defense filing Professor Smith notes that Stallings devotes more pages to Fern Smith s testimony than anyone else s and does not merely find her testimony credible the terse description she uses for others she finds credible Ms Smith s resolute testimony adding a flourish that suggests Ms Smith was somehow more than credible Whether Stallings was persuaded to rule against Wood because she was secretly biased in Fern Smith s favor is ultimately not the point As the legal ethics professor notes the question of recusal is not based on whether a judge is too biased to preside over a occurrence but whether a judge might look biased to an outside observer Appearances matter Abbe Smith writes The very first Canon in Oklahoma s judicial code requires judges to avoid not only impropriety but the appearance of impropriety This standard is rooted in the need to preserve the legal system s legitimacy in the eyes of the citizens Abbe Smith explains But it serves a practical purpose too Lawyers are often reluctant to make recusal motions for fear of antagonizing judges she writes It is helpful for a lawyer to be able to point out that a recusal motion is not personal The standard also relieves a judge from feeling that they are admitting to shameful prejudice and bias Instead it is a matter of appearances In Oklahoma City concerns over appearances have not traditionally proven to be much of a deterrent The contentious fight over Glossip s incident and the state s death penalty in general has frequently spilled into citizens view particularly where the DA s office has been involved Among Prater s final moves as DA was the targeting of Oklahoma s board of pardon and parole for showing mercy to people facing execution Prater repeatedly sought to disqualify individual board members from considering death penalty cases In Glossip s affair a newly retired Prater displayed up at his clemency hearing to telegraph his anger over Drummond s decision to testify on Glossip s behalf With Drummond s decision to retry Glossip the attorney general has determined common ground with the Macy-era prosecutors who sent Glossip to death row The attorney general has insisted he will make sure Mr Glossip receives a fair trial But allowing Stallings to preside clearly undermines this commitment defense lawyers argue Both sides should want a presiding judge who can be seen as unbiased Fighting for Stallings to stay on sends the message that the challenge is already rigged The post Her Mentor Sent Richard Glossip to Death Row Can She Give Him a Fair Trial appeared first on The Intercept