“Other evidence is testimony from a second inmate, Richard Allan Barrett, that Sneed was a thief and a methamphetamine addict and that there was no indication he was under Glossip’s control”.
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In a cliffhanging, high-profile murder-for-hire death penalty case, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin has granted an eleventh-hour two-week stay of execution of condemned inmate Richard Glossip, 52, based upon his attorneys’ assertions that newly discovered evidence will prove Glossip’s actual innocence and exonerate him. He then said he and Glossip split about $4,000 they found under a seat inside Van Treese’s auto before taking the vehicle and abandoning it at a nearby parking lot.
From the evidence he saw in court, Vorbornik describes Glossip as a manipulative person and a sociopath and he says he wants the public to know the facts of the case that he says led two juries to convict Glossip of murder. “We’re really excited”. He said he hoped his life would be spared, and that he remained optimistic. The 52-year-old was scheduled to be executed Wednesday afternoon.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) agreed to the stay of execution only hours before the execution by lethal injection was scheduled to commence at 3 p.m. CST yesterday.
In its Order to Stay Execution, the OCCA granted the temporary stay “due to Glossip’s last-minute filing and in order for this court to give fair consideration” to his claims and rescheduled his execution for September 30, 2015.
Testimony from a jail house snitch recently turned over to the court prompted Wednesday’s two-week stay of execution for Glossip.
Patton says prison officials are “shutting down” the execution procedures. But the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals granted a request from Glossip’s attorneys, who say they needed more time to explore new evidence.
Glossip was twice convicted of the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, who owned the Oklahoma City motel where Glossip worked.
There had been a stunning new statement by his fellow inmate, Michael Scott, who said that he had overheard Justin Sneed, one more convict, confess that he had acted alone in the murder of Barry Van Treese.
But Glossip’s attorneys say they have new evidence, including a signed affidavit from another inmate who claims he heard Sneed admit he set Glossip up. The state later argues that an improperly placed intravenous line – not its new mix of drugs – was the culprit in the problematic execution. His response, “Of course”.
The suit also asks that the DOC refrain from using midazolam followed by a paralytic drug and potassium chloride and argues that other states’ executions show it would be “feasible” for Oklahoma to obtain pentobarbital and sodium thiopental. He is allowed to have a pen and paper, religious items, a book or magazine, and toiletries including soap, toothpaste, a toothbrush and a comb.
The last meal was served.
Had it not been halted, Glossip’s execution would have been the first in Oklahoma since a sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state’s three-drug lethal injection formula in June.
Glossip’s new execution date is one week before the scheduled execution of Benjamin Cole.
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A 2005 study by Northwestern Law School’s Center on Wrongful Convictions found that (in the words of a Pew Charitable Trusts report) “snitch-dependent prosecutions are a leading cause of wrongful convictions in death penalty cases”. The State stipulated in the second trial that no physical evidence connected Glossip to the crime scene – because the evidence had been destroyed only days before the evidentiary hearing was ordered by the OCCA on dispositive issues of guilt-innocence.
