Oklahoma legal professional basic to advocate clemency for Glossip

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma’s new Lawyer Basic Gentner Drummond plans to ask the state’s Pardon and Parole Board on Wednesday to advocate sparing the lifetime of demise row inmate Richard Glossip, a extremely uncommon transfer for the state’s prime prosecutor’s workplace that usually urges the board to reject clemency.

In a letter dated Monday to the five-member board, Drummond wrote that he has critical issues in regards to the equity of Glossip’s trial and cited two unbiased opinions of the case that advisable Glossip be granted a brand new trial.

“I’m not conscious of an Oklahoma Lawyer Basic ever supporting a clemency software for a demise row inmate,” Drummond wrote. “In each earlier case that has come earlier than this board, the state has maintained full confidence within the integrity of the conviction. That’s merely not the case on this matter because of the materials proof that was not disclosed to the jury.”

Drummond beforehand requested the Oklahoma Courtroom of Legal Appeals to vacate Glossip’s conviction, saying in a courtroom submitting that though the state is just not suggesting Glossip is harmless, he had quite a few issues in regards to the trial, together with that the important thing witness towards Glossip lied to the jury about his psychiatric remedy and causes for taking the mood-stabilizing drug lithium. However the courtroom rejected that request final month, paving the way in which for Glossip to be executed on Could 18.

Glossip’s legal professional, Don Knight, didn’t instantly return a message left together with his workplace after hours.

Glossip, now 60, was convicted of the 1997 murder-for-hire killing of his boss, motel proprietor Barry Van Treese, at two separate trials primarily based largely on the testimony of his co-defendant, Justin Sneed. Sneed admitted robbing and killing Van Treese, however he claims he solely did so after Glossip agreed to pay him $10,000. Sneed acquired a sentence of life in jail.

The five-member Pardon and Parole Board is predicted to think about Glossip’s clemency advice on Wednesday. If a majority of the board recommends clemency, will probably be as much as Gov. Kevin Stitt whether or not to permit the execution to proceed or commute Glossip’s sentence to life in jail.

Glossip has been simply hours from being executed thrice, together with as soon as in September 2015 when jail officers realized that they had acquired the incorrect deadly drug, a mix-up that helped immediate a virtually seven-year moratorium on the demise penalty in Oklahoma.

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Comply with Sean Murphy on Twitter: @apseanmurphy