Someone with access to Oklahoma Department of Corrections records and files illegally obtained and leaked details about Scott’s incarceration to the media, including The Oklahoman, which ran a story on Scott in the September 19 edition.
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Glossip had what he thought would be his final meal Tuesday evening, according to a spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, eating pizza, fish and chips, and a “Baconator” burger and strawberry malt from fast-food chain Wendy’s. He said he did not know that the delay was prompted because of a question over the use of the drug potassium acetate. He said he’s “happy to have 37 more days”.
The state of Oklahoma is scheduled to execute Richard Glossip today at 3 p.m. local time.
A man convicted of ordering his manager’s homicide has had his execution postponed as a result of doubt on the deadly drugs, in the last minute. Besides claiming hes innocent, Glossip also has challenged the states three-drug execution protocol.
Patton said his office requested the stay “out of due diligence”.
“This will allow us time to review the current drug protocol and answer any questions we might have about the drug protocol”, Oklahoma Corrections Director Robert Patton told reporters before walking away without taking questions.
Governor Mary Fallin acted as Richard Glossip was set to be executed on Wednesday.
Fallin on Wednesday reset Glossip’s execution for November. 6, saying it would give the state enough time to determine whether potassium acetate is a suitable substitute, or to find a supply of potassium chloride.
He and his family have maintained his innocence for almost 20 years, arguing that he was set up. Last year, botched executions left inmates struggling, kicking and gasping for air in Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma, where Clayton Lockett took more than 40 minutes to die, eventually of a heart attack. It is the second reprieve Glossip has received this month.
But Fallin stopped the procedure because potassium acetate, one of the three drugs that would have been administered, is not part the state’s procedures.
The drugs processes in Oklahoma have already been under examination since a defective execution in April 2014. Kiesel says there is no justification for Glossip’s execution other than “the politics of convenience”. The court majority wrote that the new evidence simply expands on theories raised in his original appeals. The case rested nearly exclusively on Sneed’s claims.
As is always the case, the prosecutor opposed every effort to have additional evidence of Glossip’s innocence considered. “If a state or federal court grants Glossip a new trial or decides to delay his execution, I will respect that decision”.
Lawyers for Richard Glossip say the death row inmate deserves a hearing on a claim that he is innocent. But on Monday, the judge rejected Glossip’s appeal.
Sky News correspondent Ian Woods, who has investigated the case, had been invited by Glossip to be a witness to the execution and had been in the room in the hours leading up to the scheduled lethal injection.
Fallin’s executive order came about an hour later.
Glossip was initially scheduled to be executed September 16.
After the Supreme Court ruling on midazolam, Oklahoma quickly said it planned to resume executions. The state’s investigation said it found problems with the insertion of the IV meant to deliver the lethal chemicals, and Oklahoma later altered its lethal injection policy – the same one later reviewed by the Supreme Court – to include a higher dose of the sedative midazolam.
Glossip’s name will be familiar to Supreme Court justices.
Last week, a letter was sent by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano on behalf of Pope Francis, asking the state to spare his life.
On Wednesday morning, a spokesman for Fallin said the governor has not replied to the request yet.
Sister Prejean, who runs the Ministry Against the Death Penalty out of Louisiana, has served as Glossip’s spiritual adviser and frequently visited him in prison.
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“I don’t think we should be pointing fingers right now because we don’t have details about who did what”, she said at a Capitol news conference in Oklahoma City that focused on another topic. The dissenting justice was Stephen Breyer – who argued in June that it is “likely” that capital punishment violates the constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
