OKLAHOMA CITY – In less than two weeks, Richard Glossip will die on the execution table.
He was sentenced to death for the murder-for-hire of Barry Van Treese.
That was back in 1998. Glossip has been on death row ever since.
Now there’s a plea to stop his execution once again.
Glossip’s execution date was initially set for last January, but it was delayed while the supreme court reviewed our state’s lethal injection drugs.
After the court’s decision, Glossip’s death was set.
It’ll happen on Sept. 16 unless Governor Mary Fallin grants him a temporary stay.
That’s why a high profile death penalty opponent marched her petition into the capitol on Thursday.
But time is running out.
Christina Glossip-Hodge will watch her father be put to death unless the Governor steps in.
“I love my dad, we all do, and we’re all here for him, and we’re not going to stop fighting, we’re not going to stop,” Glossip-Hodge said.
Also fighting is Sister Helen Prejean, the author of Dead Man Walking and a staunch opponent of the death penalty.
“When there is a question of innocence or justice that, for whatever reason, the courts haven’t handled it, it’s in her power to give a 60 day reprieve and then to have a special hearing,” Prejean said.
Richard Glossip was convicted in the 1997 murder of motel manager Barry Van Treese, but he’s always maintained his innocence.
Prosecutors didn’t have any forensic evidence against Glossip, but the key witness in trial said Glossip paid him to carry out the murder.
“I think you need to have some corroborating evidence so you don’t just have the word of the person who actually committed the act,” former prosecutor Andy Coats said.
Coats says the governor should take a long look at this case.
“The governor could consider it, do a short time stay, send it back to the pardon and parole board for the question not of whether it could be clemency, but whether there might be come opportunity to commute to life imprisonment,” Coats said.
Prejean says a temporary stay will let Glossip’s attorneys keep working to prove his innocence.
As for Van Treese’s family, they’re still waiting for justice, while another family is waiting, too.
“I think what happened to Barry Van Treese’s family is horrible and nobody deserves that, but I don’t think two innocent men should have to die,” Glossip-Hodge said.
Up to this point, Governor Fallin has said Glossip’s execution will go forward because the legal process has run its course.
Here is a map that shows the number of executions in each state since 1990.
[findthebest id=”jGG11fR8EPX” title=”Capital Punishment by State and Over Time” width=”700″ height=”575″ url=”//www.findthebest.com/w/jGG11fR8EPX” link=”http://places.findthehome.com” link_text=”Capital Punishment by State and Over Time | FindTheHome”]
