The similarities between the drugs raises the question of whether the state simply couldn’t obtain potassium chloride, which is part of its protocol, and substituted potassium acetate.
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“That’s just insane”, Glossip said when told of the drug mix-up Wednesday. He says he’s “happy to have 37 more days”.
Later, however, the Court turned down a rehearing request by Glossip and the other two inmates, seeking to have the Court use their case as a test of the constitutionality of death sentences in general.
“Were elated”, said Ryan Kiesel, executive director of OK ACLU.
Pope Francis reportedly contacted Fallin directly asking her to not move forward with the execution. Ms. Fallin said the stay would allow the Department of Corrections and its lawyers to determine whether potassium acetate – a drug the state planned to use that it had not previously disclosed – complied with the state’s court-approved protocols.
Fallin has repeatedly denied Glossip’s request for a 60-day stay of execution and said in a statement Tuesday she has no plans to stop the punishment.
But more than an hour after the scheduled execution time, Gov. Mary Fallin intervened, issuing a 37-day stay to address questions about the state’s execution protocols. The drug was used in a botched execution in the state previous year.
However, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has said he was confident that the criminal appeals court would conclude that there was “nothing worthy” that would lead it to overturn the guilty verdict.
But just two minutes before he was set to be strapped to the gurney, Justice Sotomayor denied the request.
“Governor Fallin, this is the wrong man, and the wrong case to carry out an execution”, they wrote in the letter Tuesday.
Mr Branson took out a full-page ad in The Oklahoman newspaper on Wednesday that argued that Glossip is innocent.
“While finality of judgment is important, the state has no interest in executing an actually innocent man”, Presiding Judge Clancy Smith wrote in his dissenting opinion.
The pope also had interceded on behalf of Georgia prisoner Kelly Gissendaner, who nevertheless was executed early Wednesday morning for ordering her husband’s murder in 1998. At the same time, however, the death penalty appears to be on the wane in most of the country, with fewer death sentences, death row inmates, and executions than in the past.
Georgia went ahead with an execution – the first of a woman in 70 years in the southern state – in the early hours of Wednesday, several hours later than expected, despite a similar call for clemency from the pontiff.
Glossip has maintained his innocence despite being convicted twice for his role in the 1997 beating death of Barry Van Treese, the owner of an Oklahoma City motel Glossip managed.
Glossip’s new petition for review on the innocence claim, and his separate plea to delay the execution, were filed this week.
September 15, 2015 – After Gov. Mary Fallin refuses to delay Glossip’s execution, Glossip’s attorneys notify the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals that they have new evidence.
In a testy May hearing, the high court heard arguments from both sides, and two of the conservative justices, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, expressed concerns that death penalty opponents had fought to make the most effective drugs unavailable.
In recent weeks, Glossip’s lawyers had presented new evidence attacking Sneed’s credibility as a witness.
Glossip’s attorneys claimed they had new evidence including another inmate’s claim that he overheard Sneed admit to framing Glossip. The Supreme Court ruled against Glossip, saying that that protocol was constitutional because the petitioners didn’t adequately prove to the court that it wasn’t.
“I think this is about to be a trying time for the death penalty”, Glossip said.
After the stay was issued, Glossip spoke via phone with anti-death penalty advocate Sister Helen Prejean and then spoke to reporters via speakerphone.
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June 2004 – A second Oklahoma County jury convicts Glossip and sentences him to death.
