Supreme Courtroom blocks Richard Glossip’s execution in Oklahoma

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Courtroom on Friday blocked Oklahoma from executing dying row inmate Richard Glossip after the state’s legal professional normal agreed Glossip’s life needs to be spared.

Glossip had been scheduled to be put to dying on Might 18 regardless of statements by new Oklahoma Lawyer Common Gentner Drummond that Glossip didn’t obtain a good trial.

An Oklahoma appeals court docket subsequently upheld Glossip’s conviction and the state’s pardon and parole board deadlocked in a vote to grant him clemency.

The excessive court docket put the execution on maintain whereas it critiques the case. Justice Neil Gorsuch took no half within the case, presumably as a result of he handled it earlier as an appeals court docket decide.

Drummond, a Republican, supported a high-court reprieve for Glossip, telling the justices, “Glossip’s trial was unfair and unreliable.”

However Drummond additionally has stated he doesn’t imagine Glossip is harmless of the murder-for-hire killing of Glossip’s former boss, Barry Van Treese, in 1997. One other man, Justin Sneed, admitted robbing and killing Van Treese after Glossip promised to pay him $10,000. Sneed obtained a life sentence in alternate for his testimony and was the important thing witness in opposition to Glossip.

Two investigations have revealed issues with the prosecution’s case in opposition to Glossip.

Drummond stated Sneed lied on the stand about his psychiatric situation and his motive for taking the mood-stabilizing drug lithium.

Different issues embrace the destruction of proof, Drummond stated.

Glossip’s case has been to the Supreme Courtroom earlier than. He was given an earlier reprieve in 2015, though the court docket later dominated 5-4 in opposition to him in a case involving the medication utilized in deadly executions.