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USA - Oklahoma. Board denies clemency for Glossip
April 26, 2023: (April 26, 2023) - Board denies clemency for death row inmate Glossip
Oklahoma’s state parole board voted Wednesday not to recommend clemency for death row inmate Richard Glossip, even though the state attorney general said he doesn’t think the condemned man whose case has drawn interest from celebrities and others received a fair trial.
The board voted 2-2 to not recommend that Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt grant clemency to Glossip, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection on May 18. One board member recused himself because his spouse is a prosecutor who had previous involvement in Glossip’s case, leading Glossip’s lead attorney to object to the move in his opening remarks Wednesday.
There is no way to appeal the board’s decision, and Stitt would have needed the board’s recommendation in order to grant clemency. Glossip’s attorneys still have a pending petition before the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to halt his execution.
The vote came despite the state’s new Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, taking the unusual step of arguing on behalf of granting clemency — his office typically asks the board to allow executions to proceed. Drummond said that although he doesn’t believe Glossip is innocent, he thinks he didn’t receive a fair trial and deserves a new one.
In recent days, Drummond has taken an increasingly strong stance in calling for the execution process to be halted. He appointed an independent review of the case which threw up multiple instances of prosecutorial errors, and on the basis of that the attorney general has argued that it would be a “grave injustice” for the lethal injection to go ahead.
Drummond requested a stay of execution, but last week the Oklahoma court of criminal appeals gave the green light for it to proceed.
Earlier, the panel heard from the Republican state lawmaker Kevin McDugle. He has led a group of 62 fellow legislators including 45 Republicans – all of them staunch defenders of the death penalty – in backing the call for a new hearing in Glossip’s case.
McDugle made an impassioned speech in which he warned that an innocent man was facing execution. “I believe Glossip is innocent of the charge of murder. I believe there are too many mistakes in this case and it does not meet the high bar required to be put to death.”
Glossip has already come within hours of being put to death three times since he was convicted of the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, the owner of a Best Budget motel in Oklahoma City where Glossip worked as manager. The prisoner has never been accused of actually killing Van Treese.
Instead, a maintenance worker at the motel, Justin Sneed, confessed to police that he beat Van Treese to death with a baseball bat. Sneed, who had a drug habit at the time, later turned state’s witness and pointed the finger at Glossip whom he testified had ordered the murder.
No other forensic or corroborating evidence was presented at trial against Glossip. He was sent to death row while the self-confessed killer, Sneed, was given life without parole.
Glossip is also notable for his role as named plaintiff in the 2015 Supreme Court case Glossip v. Gross, which ruled that executions carried out by a three-drug protocol of midazolam, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
In September and October 2015, Glossip was granted three successive stays of execution due to questions about Oklahoma's lethal injection drugs after Oklahoma Department of Corrections officials used potassium acetate instead of potassium chloride to execute Charles Frederick Warner on January 15, 2015, contrary to protocol. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt ordered a multicounty grand jury investigation of the execution drug mix-up.
https://apnews.com/article/oklahoma-execution-richard-glossip-innocence-death-penalty-36b5550051967142c999f5f0abed155c
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/26/richard-glossip-death-row-clemency-oklahoma (Source: Associated Press, The Guardian, 26/04/2023)
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