Just three hours before Richard Glossip was set to be put to death by lethal injection Wednesday, an Oklahoma appeals court temporarily halted his execution, giving him a two-week reprieve in one of the nation's highest-profile death penalty cases.
Oklahoma's scheduled 3 p.m. CDT execution of Glossip, 52, for murder would have been its first since the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly approved Oklahoma's controversial lethal injection procedures in June.
Several celebrities and Oklahoma public figures have urged the state not to execute Glossip.
Glossip has sworn he is innocent in the 1997 killing of Barry Van Treese, his boss at the hotel where he worked in Oklahoma City. Prosecutors said Glossip arranged to have Treese killed by a hotel janitor, Justin Sneed, who took a plea deal and received a life sentence in exchange for testifying against Glossip.
The state's case against Glossip largely rested on Sneed's word, leading several high-profile figures _ including former U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn and former Oklahoma University football coach Barry Switzer _ to call on Oklahoma to delay or cancel Glossip's execution out of concern for his possible innocence.
Celebrities including Susan Sarandon, George Takei and anti-death-penalty advocate Sister Helen Prejean have also spoken out against Oklahoma's attempts to execute Glossip.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin had brushed those requests aside, saying in a statement Tuesday, "After carefully reviewing the facts of this case multiple times, I see no reason to cast doubt on the guilty verdict reached by the jury or to delay Glossip's sentence of death."
Glossip's attorneys had filed a desperate appeal Tuesday to Oklahoma's Court of Criminal Appeals, arguing that Glossip did not get a fair trial and had ineffective help from his attorneys.
"Newly discovered evidence reveals that Sneed's testimony was much weaker than even this Court has acknowledged," the attorneys wrote in the Tuesday appeal. "We know Mr. Glossip did not kill anyone. The only evidence that he was even involved in a killing comes from Justin Sneed's lips."
In a two-page response Wednesday, the appeals court granted a two-week stay so that it could "give fair consideration" to Glossip's appeal. Another execution date was set for Sept. 30.
Glossip's name is permanently stamped into the American legal record after his legal challenge against Oklahoma's use of the lethal injection drug midazolam _ a case titled Glossip vs. Gross _ reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
Oklahoma in particular had faced criticism over its lethal-injection procedures after its chaotic 2014 execution of Clayton Lockett, who took almost an hour to die after receiving a mixture of drugs that included the sedative midazolam.
Supreme Court decided 5-4 that Oklahoma and other death-penalty states could use the drug, but the case was notable for its dissent by two liberal justices who signaled that they would be open to an outright challenge against the death penalty itself.
(c)2015 Los Angeles Times
