Shortly before Glossip’s execution is set to begin, Fallin grants a 37-day reprieve after the Department of Corrections discloses it had received a drug not listed in the agency’s execution protocols.
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There were jubilant scenes after Oklahoma’s governor, Mary Fallin, stopped the execution being carried out amid concerns over one of the drugs involved.
The 53-year-old was scheduled to recieve a three-drug exectution cocktail after he was sentenced to death in 2004.
The state’s announcement it had received potassium acetate instead of potassium chloride raised questions about when prison officials knew they had the wrong drug. Oklahoma has never used the drug in executions, nor is it known to be an appropriate substitute for potassium chloride – the third in Oklahoma’s official three-drug protocol.
“There was a dozen of us and we just gathered arm in arm and said whatever caused the stay we’ll take it”, he said.
Pope Francis has appealed to the governor of Oklahoma to commute an inmate’s death sentence.
Though he’d never been convicted of a crime before, Glossip was convicted twice in two trials, Fallin has said.
For now, today’s events have not affected two other upcoming executions in Oklahoma.
He said he was still in his holding cell when he learned about the last-minute postponement of his scheduled execution.
“The Governor has granted a stay of execution for Richard Eugene Glossip until next month”. But a federal court on Wednesday ordered a temporary halt in order to examine the state’s planned use of compounded pentobarbital obtained from Texas, the nation’s leader in carrying out death sentences.
“The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals considered Glossip’s petition and denied a further stay”.
During the pontiff’s visit last week to the U.S., the Pope urged Congress to abolish the death penalty.
Francis tried and failed to do the same for Gissendaner on Tuesday. Fallin, a Republican, rejected a previous request.
His attorneys argue that racial bias played a role in his sentencing, noting that prosecutors used peremptory strikes to remove all three African Americans from the jury pool.
January 14, 1997 – Motel maintenance man Justin Sneed, who was found with $1,700 after Van Treese’s death, is also arrested in connection to the death. According to documents that Glossip’s attorneys filed with the OCCA on September 24, Prater brazenly attempted to intimidate those witnesses who came forward to discredit Sneed’s account of the Van Treese killing.
But since then, a refusal by manufacturers – mainly European – to supply the required drugs has led states like Oklahoma to seek out alternatives, including midazolam.
Glossip’s attorneys claimed they had new evidence including another inmate’s claim that he overheard Sneed admit to framing Glossip.
After realizing the mistake, the Corrections Department reached out immediately to the attorney general’s office, Weintz said. Kiesel says there is no justification for Glossip’s execution other than “the politics of convenience”. The bid for clemency was denied by the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Parolees. They added: “The world is now watching to see if the state of Oklahoma is actually going to execute an innocent man”.
The Supreme Court, in an April 2008 decision, upheld the constitutionality of execution by lethal injection. The most high-profile of these was the botched lethal injection of Clayton Lockett past year in Oklahoma. Smith said he grew up fishing and having cookouts with Glossip, whom he described as generous and an important influence on him. When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of lethal injection in June, Justice Stephen Breyer laid out an impassioned dissent. They said that presented a substantial risk of violating the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
“Today’s hastily abandoned plans show what happens when states carry out executions in secrecy with unqualified execution team members and no public oversight”, he said.
Glossip’s next execution date is Friday, November 6th.
Connie Johnson, a former lawmaker and president of the coalition, said death penalty critics are thankful for the stay, although it was granted for unexpected reasons. She was motivated not by mounting evidence of the innocence Glossip has long maintained, but because of questions about the lethal injection protocol. So, it’s up to activists, who already include The Pope, actress Susan Sarandon and Richard Branson to keep up pressure. Prejean had planned to attend the execution if it occurs.
The letter says a commutation “would give clearer witness to the value and dignity of every person’s life”.
Glossip’s execution would be the second in quick succession in the United States.
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It’s been a big week for the USA death penalty. Knowing that the execution was supposed to take place in her own backyard was “nauseating”, she said.
