OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt granted one other temporary reprieve to loss of life row inmate Richard Glossip, pushing his scheduled execution again till February 2023 in order that an appeals courtroom has extra time to contemplate his declare of innocence.
Stitt, who’s locked in a powerful reelection contest, issued an government order on Wednesday that delays Glossip’s execution, which was scheduled for Nov. 21. Stitt’s workplace did not instantly reply to a request for remark. A clemency listening to for Glossip that was scheduled earlier than the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board subsequent week additionally will probably be delayed.
Glossip obtained the loss of life penalty for the 1997 murder-for-hire killing of his boss, motel proprietor Barry Van Treese. Prosecutors acknowledge Glossip didn’t kill Van Treese, however preserve that he paid the lodge upkeep man, Justin Sneed, to do it. Sneed, who obtained a life sentence however was spared the loss of life penalty, was a key witness in two separate trials wherein Glossip was convicted.
Attorney General John O’Connor mentioned in a press release that he respects the governor’s resolution however stays assured in Glossip’s guilt.
“After 25 years, justice continues to be on maintain for Barry Van Treese and his household,” O’Connor said. “Mr. Van Treese was in a room of the motel he owned when he was brutally murdered with a baseball bat by Justin Sneed, an individual Richard Glossip hired to work at the motel and later enlisted to commit the murder. Two different juries found Glossip guilty of murder for hire.”
Van Treese’s brother, Ken Van Treese, didn’t instantly return a message looking for touch upon Stitt’s resolution.
Glossip requested the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals for a brand new evidentiary listening to following the launch of an unbiased investigation by Houston regulation agency Reed Smith that raised new questions on his guilt. The agency’s report didn’t discover any definitive proof of Glossip’s innocence, however raised issues about misplaced or destroyed proof and a detective asking main inquiries to Sneed to implicate Glossip within the slaying.
“The newly uncovered proof exhibits a concerted effort by the state to destroy and conceal proof that’s favorable to Rich, even to at the present time, and, most shockingly, to fabricate trial testimony they wanted to convict him,” Glossip’s attorney, Don Knight, said in a statement. “There is now overwhelming support for what Reed Smith has concluded after its thorough investigation — that no reasonable juror who heard all the evidence would find him guilty.”
A bipartisan group of 62 Oklahoma legislators, led by Republican state Rep. Kevin McDugle, have signed a request {that a} new evidentiary listening to be granted.
Glossip, now 59, has lengthy maintained his innocence. He has been scheduled to be executed three separate instances, solely to be spared shortly earlier than the sentence was set to be carried out. He was simply hours from being executed in September 2015 when jail officers realized they’d obtained the incorrect deadly drug, a mix-up that helped immediate an almost seven-year moratorium on the loss of life penalty in Oklahoma.
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