Supreme Court halts execution of Richard Glossip

[Mike Honcho 5,546]

This has been a very crazy case and SCOTUS rarely ever stays an execution.  The Oklahoma AG petitioned the OK supreme court on Glossips behalf and the OK court denied the appeal to halt the execution.

 

CNN Story

The US Supreme Court on Friday put on hold the execution of Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma death row inmate whose capital conviction the state attorney general has said he could no longer support.

The latest round of litigation was brought to the Supreme Court by Glossip, with the support of the Oklahoma Attorney’s General office, who asked for his May 18 execution to be set aside.

The emergency hold on his execution will stay in place while the justices consider his request that they formally take up his case.

A review launched by;s Oklahoma Republican attorney general found that prosecutors had failed to disclose evidence to Glossip that they were obligated to produce and that the evidence showed that the prosecutors’ key witness – the supposed accomplice of Glossip’s who committed the murder – had given false testimony.

Despite Oklahoma’s assertions that it could no longer stand by Glossip’s conviction, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeal declined Glossip’s request that his execution be halted.

 

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Wiki Link

On January 7, 1997, Justin Sneed beat Barry Van Treese to death with a baseball bat.^[15] The killing occurred at the Best Budget Inn in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where Van Treese was the owner, Sneed was the maintenance man, and Glossip was the manager.^[15] In exchange for avoiding the death penalty, Sneed confessed and told police that Glossip had instructed him to commit the murder.^[15]

Glossip insisted on his actual innocence and refused to accept a plea bargain.^[15] In July 1998, an Oklahoma jury convicted Glossip of the murder and sentenced him to death.^[15] In 2001, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously threw out that conviction, calling the case "extremely weak" and finding Glossip had received unconstitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel.^[15][8]

In August 2004, a second Oklahoma jury convicted Glossip of the murder and sentenced him to death.^[15] Glossip complained that prosecutors had intimidated his defense attorney into resigning. However, in April 2007, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the death sentence, with two judges in the majority, one judge specially concurring, and two judges dissenting.^[15][16] Glossip attracted the advocacy of Sister Helen Prejean, but failed to get the clemency board to consider letters from Sneed’s family, who believe Sneed is lying.^[15]

 

 

[Strike 6,032]

As they should have. The evidence is overwhelming that this guy is innocent.

[jerryskids 7,196]

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Despite Oklahoma’s assertions that it could no longer stand by Glossip’s conviction, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeal declined Glossip’s request that his execution be halted.

This makes no sense to me.  And this Glossip case is and example of why I now oppose the death penalty.  Government should not be in the business of killing its citizens, and since my model is that government almost never does anything well (besides the military), I presume there are a bunch of other fock-ups in the system like this one.