Is Oklahoma About to Execute an Innocent Man?
Wouldn't be the first time.
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/32382-is-oklahoma-about-to-execute-an-innocent-man
Glossip was convicted in twice – in 1998 and at a retrial in 2004 – of murder. He came within a day of execution in January before being granted a stay, as his name was attached to a landmark supreme court appeal over the lethal injection drug midazolam, which has been used in several botched executions, including one in Oklahoma last year. In June, the court ruled the drug’s use to be constitutional, and Glossip’s date with death was set in July.
There is no DNA or nor any fingerprints linking him to the 1997 murder of Van Treese in the Best Budget Inn in Oklahoma City. His lawyers this week noted that the prosecutors themselves admitted in 2004 that “the physical evidence doesn’t directly implicate Mr Glossip”.
Rather, Glossip was convicted based on the testimony of Justin Sneed, a 19-year-old maintenance worker who, at various points during his police interrogation a week after the murder, said he didn’t know Van Treese, then that he didn’t kill van Treese, then that he had killed him accidentally, and then that he had killed him intentionally, under Glossip’s instruction. Eventually, Sneed agreed to a plea deal in which he would testify against Glossip to save himself from the death penalty.
Transcripts of the police interrogation show Sneed first denied any knowledge of the murder. “I don’t really know what to say about it,” he told investigators, stumbling over a story about his brother before admitting that he robbed Van Treese but “I only meant to knock him out”.