But just hours before he was set to receive a lethal injection, the court granted Glossip a two-week reprieve after his attorneys claimed they had new evidence that he was innocent, including another inmate’s claim that he overheard Sneed admit to framing Glossip.
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Glossip is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday at 3 p.m.
The majority opinion, written by Judge David Lewis, says Glossip has not suffered a miscarriage of justice, and that new evidence brought to light by his defense attorneys only expands on theories raised in his earlier appeal denied by the OCCA.
Glossip attorney Mark Henricksen said he expects to file a petition with the nation’s highest court following Monday’s narrow ruling by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals rejecting Glossip’s request for a new hearing.
Almost 20 years after he beat Barry Van Treese to death, Sneed maintains Glossip convinced him to do it. For the first time, Sneed was talking on-camera about the controversial case, to a reporter from the online paper. The attorneys have asserted that Glossip’s legal representation was inadequate and attacked the credibility of Van Treese’s autopsy.
Richard Glossip (left) was set to be executed in the Oklahoma’s death chamber in McAlester before Robert Patton, director of the Oklahoma Department of Prisons, announced the execution had been halted.
Richard Glossip’s execution will move forward Wednesday.
However, prosecutors have pointed to inconsistencies in Glossip’s initial police statements about his involvement in the crime. “Any further request for a stay of execution is also denied”.
Glossip’s lawyers presented statements from jail informants who said that Sneed had boasted of setting up Glossip.
August 14, 1998 – Glossip convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
In 1997, Van Treese, owner of the Best Budget Inn, was bludgeoned to death by Sneed.
Reaction to the appeals court’s decision was filled with disappointment.
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“This Justin Sneed interview shows unequivocally that Justin Sneed is a person who can’t tell the truth in this case”, said Don Knight, Glossip’s attorney. Glossip, the lead plaintiff in that case, argued that the sedative midazolam violated the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment because it didn’t adequately render an inmate unconscious before the second and third drugs were administered.
