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 Richard Glossip, 52, is set to be executed at the state's death
chamber in McAlester on Wednesday at 3 p.m. local time after
unsuccessfully challenging the legality of Oklahoma's lethal
injection mix. He was found guilty of arranging the 1997 murder of
the owner of an Oklahoma City motel he was managing.
Fallin, a Republican, said her legal team examined what lawyers for
Glossip called "new evidence" and determined it was neither new nor
substantial enough to warrant a stay of execution.
"After carefully reviewing the facts of this case multiple times, I
see no reason to cast doubt on the guilty verdict reached by the
jury or to delay Glossip's sentence of death. For that reason I am
rejecting his request for a stay of execution," Fallin said in a
statement.
Glossip's lawyers also filed a last-minute petition with the
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to halt the execution.
No physical evidence tied Glossip to the crime, his lawyers said,
adding he was convicted largely on the testimony of Justin Sneed,
then 19, who confessed to carrying out the killing and said Glossip
hired him to do it. Sneed is serving a life sentence.
Glossip's execution would be the first in Oklahoma since the U.S.
Supreme Court in June ruled that the use of midazolam, a sedative
used in the lethal injection procedure, did not violate the U.S.
Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Lawyers for Glossip and two other Oklahoma death row inmates had
challenged the use of midazolam, saying it could not achieve the
level of unconsciousness required for surgery, making it unsuitable
for executions.
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A stay for Glossip has won backing of an unusual group including
former U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, a conservative Republican; former
Dallas Cowboys and University of Oklahoma football coach Barry
Switzer; and the Innocence Project, a group that seeks to exonerate
wrongly convicted prisoners.
In 1997, Barry Van Treese, owner of the Best Budget Inn, was
bludgeoned to death by Sneed. Glossip was convicted in 1998 and
sentenced to death that year, with the decision upheld on appeal.
(Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Will Dunham)
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