Oklahoma: Richard Glossip's attorneys to file stay request in light of recent Supreme Court decision

Richard Glossip

Attorneys representing Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip, who is scheduled to die Thursday, plan to file a request to stay his execution in light of the recent news that the U.S. Supreme Court will review his case.

Dale Baitch, the public defender representing Glossip, wouldn't specify whether he and his colleagues will ask the country's highest court or Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) to suspend the execution, adding that he'd "rather not predict" what the specifics of a Supreme Court decision could mean for Glossip's future. "At this moment, we're in a 'wait and see' posture," he told The Huffington Post.

Glossip and 2 other inmates claim Oklahoma's lethal injection procedure can cause severe pain that violates the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. On Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to take up their case.

"It's the 1st time in a long time that I let myself get a little more excited than normal," Glossip, 51, told HuffPost after hearing the Supreme Court news. "I finally got a victory. A small victory -- but it uplifted me."

Oklahoma's execution methods came under scrutiny last April after death row inmate Clayton Lockett died 45 minutes after being injected with a combination of drugs that had never been used together before. Lockett allegedly writhed, clenched his teeth and struggled against the restraints holding him to a gurney before prison officials halted the execution. He then died from a heart attack.

"It was a horrible thing to witness," Lockett's attorney, David Autry, told The Associated Press at the time. "This was totally botched."

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court declined to stay the execution of Charles Warner, another Oklahoma death row inmate. "My body is on fire," Warner, the 1st to be killed since Lockett, said after he was injected.

Glossip was convicted of 1st-degree murder in 1998 based on the testimony of 1 witness, Justin Sneed, who claimed Glossip hired him to kill his boss. Glossip has staunchly maintained his innocence from the beginning.

His situation has drawn the support of several death penalty opponents, including Sister Helen Prejean, a nun best known for her memoir Dead Man Walking. Prejean, who serves as Glossip's spiritual adviser and plans to be present the day he's executed, will hold a press conference Tuesday to bring more attention to his case.

"We need to get out to the public just how flimsy and vulnerable our whole system is that a man could be condemned on [Sneed's testimony] and be moving to his execution," Prejean told HuffPost last week. "It's really unworthy of us to do that as a people."

Sneed, a contract handyman who worked and lived at the Best Budget Inn that Glossip managed in Oklahoma City, confessed to beating motel owner Barry Van Treese to death with a baseball bat on Jan. 7, 1997. Prosecutors said Glossip was afraid he was about to be fired, and Sneed later testified that Glossip offered to pay him $10,000 to carry out the murder. In exchange for his testimony, Sneed received a life sentence without parole.

A judge told Glossip that if he admitted his involvement in Van Treese's death, he would be sentenced to life in prison and eligible for parole after 20 years. Glossip refused, saying he wouldn't perjure himself by admitting to something he didn't do.

"A lot of people ask if I hate [Sneed]," Glossip told HuffPost last week. "I don't hate him. Hatred ain't gonna do anything for you."

Death penalty opponents argue that it's unfair to convict someone based on only one individual's story. A Change.org petition calling on Fallin to halt the execution had garnered nearly 27,000 signatures as of Monday. It noted that Sneed's daughter recently wrote a letter to the Oklahoma clemency board claiming her father wished he could recant his testimony.

HuffPost obtained a copy of the letter. "For a couple of years now, my father has been talking to me about recanting his original testimony. But has been afraid to act upon it, in fear of being charged with the Death Penalty," it reads. "His fear of recanting, but guilt about not doing so, makes it obvious that information he is sitting on would exonerate Mr. Glossip."

Prejean believes Sneed recanting would change everything for Glossip. "The one thing that got Richard the death sentence was the testimony of Sneed," she said. "All the jury heard was this man. There was no forensic evidence at all."

Glossip told HuffPost he has a small TV in his cell, which he keeps on most of the time. He first learned the Supreme Court would take up his case late on Friday, when he noticed something different about the news reports regarding his case.

"When they came on the TV in Oklahoma, on the news, they used to always say 'convicted murderer Richard Glossip,'" he said. "They changed that now: Richard Glossip, who is accused of being in a murder-for-hire plot.' It's the 1st time they've ever done that, and it's a step in the right direction."

While the Supreme Court needs only 4 votes to review a case, it needs 5 to stay an execution. The other 2 inmates involved in the Supreme Court case, John Grant and Benjamin Cole, aren't set to die until Feb. 19 and March 5, respectively.

"Over the next couple of days, the issues the [Supreme Court] wants to hear will become clear," Baich said. "The fact that 4 justices wanted to hear the case suggests that they don't want it mooted out by the 3 petitioners being executed."

In the meantime, Glossip remains optimistic, vowing to fight until the very end. "I don't give up hope in any way, shape or form," he told HuffPost. "Because until they lay you on that table and stick them needles in you and you're completely dead, you always have hope. I'll never let them take that away from me, no matter what."

Source: Huffington Post, January 26

Oklahoma AG says he will defend state execution protocol

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt says his office will defend the constitutionality of the state's method for executing death row inmates as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a challenge by three death row inmates.

The nation's high court announced Friday it will hear arguments by inmates who are challenging the state's method for conducting executions.

Pruitt says Oklahoma's method has been deemed constitutional by 2 federal courts and has been successfully implemented in the state as well as in Florida.

Pruitt says his office will work to preserve the Department of Corrections' ability to proceed with death sentences given to each inmate by a jury of their peers.

Death row inmate Richard Eugene Glossip is scheduled to die on Thursday. Pruitt says there is no pending request for a stay.

Source: Associated Press, January 26, 2015

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