On September 16, 2015, Richard Glossip is slated to be executed by the state of Oklahoma for a crime he did not commit. The governor of Oklahoma, Mary Fallin, must know this, because another man has admitted the killing, but she does not intend to let Glossip’s innocence influence her decision to kill him. This is politics, in a Red state, where practicing the death penalty brings the votes.
Please read on below the orange calligraph.
Glossip is innocent of the crime for which he is going to be killed. There is no question that another person, not Glossip, killed the victim. It is also unquestionable that the guilty person is mentally challenged, although it’s not clear whether he is competent to stand trial. However, mental incompetence has not stopped executions, even in California.
The killer is not on death row because he was offered a deal by the state of Oklahoma. The deal was he would be allowed to live if he testified that Richard Glossip hired him to kill the victim. The killer, a man of questionable mental competence, took the self-saving deal, and is now serving life without possibility of parole.
There is no corroborating physical evidence that Glossip killed the victim. The admitted killer and Glossip both worked for the victim, and Glossip had no motive to kill him.
Glossip’s impending execution has catalyzed plenty of supporters to speak out on his behalf, including Sister Helen Prejean of Dead Man Walking fame and the actress who played Prejean in the film, Susan Sarandon. Sister Prejean has prepared a synopsis of the pros and cons of the Glossip case. Another person who has spoken up for Glossip’s innocence is the admitted killer’s daughter, who has written her opinion that Glossip is innocent and her father wants to recant but fears that would lead to joining Glossip on death row.
Can an innocent man be convicted of capital murder in the United States of America? Since 1973, 155 people have been exonerated off of death row after an average stay of 11.3 years. Only 20 were exonerated by DNA, but to make the list, the defendant must have been (1) acquitted after a new trial or (2) had all charges dropped or (3) gotten an absolute pardon based on new evidence of innocence.
Oklahoma, Home of Botched Execution
As you may recall, Oklahoma botched the execution of Clayton Lockett on April 29, 2014. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin ignored an Oklahoma Supreme Court order to stay the execution, Lockett was injected with the first drug in a three drug “cocktail” that was supposed to render him unconscious for the drugs that would first paralyze him and then stop his heart. If he were conscious, the second drug would cause major panic and the third would cause excruciating pain.
Lockett was not rendered unconscious by the first drug, midazolam. He gasped and struggled for over 40 minutes as the executioners first closed the curtain to take the debacle out of view of the legal observers and then, finally, decided to stop the attempt to kill Lockett—who then, they claimed, died of a coincidental heart failure.
Imagine the effect on the other death row inmates of Oklahoma.
The objection to becoming human subjects in a painful science experiment led to the case Warner v. Gross, but Charles Warner was executed and so the case got to the Supreme Court as Glossip v. Gross. The U.S. Supreme Court made Richard Glossip an involuntary lab rat by a 5-4 vote.
The Glossip case is not about whether Mr. Glossip is innocent. It is about whether the method used to kill him is “cruel and unusual punishment” and thus unlawful under the Eighth Amendment. Glossip would rather dispute his guilt than ask about the propriety of executing an innocent man.
The question is not whether a death penalty state will kill an innocent person. Of course it will. The real question is how many innocent people in each death penalty state will be sacrificed to political ambition.
It will probably make no difference, but it is necessary nevertheless for those of us with moral mirrors to raise an objection to Governor Mary Fallin. You can tell her what you think about killing an innocent man for political epicureanism worthy of Caligula at
The Office of Governor Mary Fallin
Oklahoma State Capitol
2300 N. Lincoln Blvd., Room 212
Oklahoma City, OK 73105
Local: (405) 521-2342
Fax: (405) 521-3353
2:59 PM PT: In my haste to get this diary seen, I did not credit Judge Steve Russell for first bringing this case to my attention, and I did not credit him for the way I have flagrantly copped from his article on this same case at Indian Country Today, found here: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/....
Sat Sep 12, 2015 at 7:55 AM PT: Today's New York Times carries this story http://www.nytimes.com/... which essentially recapitulates this diary. Governor Fallin remains intransigent. More pressure is needed.