Two weeks ago, Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip received a last-minute stay of execution from Governor Mary Fallin after state officials discovered their supplier shipped them a drug not listed under the state’s lethal injection protocol, an embarrassing development in a case that has garnered international attention.
Subsequent revelations that the state inadvertently used potassium acetate—the same drug that led to Glossip’s stay—in a January execution have since emerged following Fallin’s decision to indefinitely halt executions and hire an outside attorney while her attorney general investigates the state’s death penalty procedures.
Fallin’s cautious approach toward lethal injection since September 30—the date Glossip received his most recent stay—differs from her actions prior to that date, according to Fordham Law School Professor Deborah Denno, a leading death penalty expert who has closely examined the case.
“My sense is that someone is telling Fallin to slow down, because she’s done a complete turnaround,” Denno said. This sudden tactical change, the professor surmised, is designed to cool some of the heat directed at the governor’s office about this case and the state’s handling of the death penalty in general.
“Mary Fallin must realize her neck is on the chopping block, so to speak,” Denno added.
Fallin previously pushed forward with Glossip’s execution date even as the international focus on Oklahoma intensified due to concerns over the state’s lethal injection practices as well as pleas from Pope Francis, Sister Helen Prejean, and hundreds of thousands of online petitioners urging her to spare the inmate’s life.
Glossip, 52, is on death row for orchestrating the 1997 contract killing of Oklahoma City hotel owner Barry Van Treese. Motel maintenance man Justin Sneed testified Glossip hired him to kill Van Treese, a claim Glossip denies to this day. Sneed received a life sentence in exchange for his testimony.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals denied Glossip’s attorneys’ request to introduce new evidence on September 29. The U.S. Supreme Court, without comment, declined to intervene on his scheduled execution.
Glossip’s case made national headlines earlier this year when the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Glossip v. Gross that states could use the anti-anxiety drug midazolam for lethal injections. Glossip argued Oklahoma’s 2014 execution of Clayton Lockett, who died 43 minutes after being administered a drug cocktail featuring midazolam, proved that the drug qualified as cruel and unusual punishment, forbidden by the Eighth Amendment.
Glossip’s legal fight provided his case the spotlight so many other death row cases lack, Denno said.
“Otherwise Richard Glossip would be just one more person in the United States being executed despite insufficient evidence,” the professor explained. “He would be nameless without this.”
In recent years, Oklahoma, like other pro-death penalty states, has had difficulty obtaining drugs necessary to carry out lethal injections. According to media reports, state officials learned they had potassium acetate instead of the approved potassium chloride just two hours before Glossip’s planned execution. That revelation came one month after Fallin told reporters the state had the potassium chloride necessary to go forward with Glossip’s then-scheduled execution date of September 16, a date later postponed to September 30.
Oklahoma inadvertently used potassium acetate in the January execution of convicted murderer and rapist Charles Warner, news reports revealed earlier this month. The secrecy that shrouds capital punishment cases and lethal injection practices, not to mention who supplies what drugs, means instances like Warner’s happen without anyone knowing, Denno said.
In theory, Oklahoma has a legally approved backup plan (nitrogen gas) in the event it lacks the drugs needed to carry out a lethal injection. The state legislature passed a law earlier this year allowing the Department of Corrections to use nitrogen gas in such instances but little else is known about how such a scenario would play out.
“They have no such protocol for nitrogen gas,” Denno said of Oklahoma. “They don’t know how they would do it, who would do it, or where they would do it.”
There is no timeline for when Oklahoma will seek to execute Glossip again. However, it appears only a matter of time, once the investigation concludes, before the push to do so resumes.
“The longer Glossip lives, the longer the embarrassment lives,” Denno said. “As long as he’s around, there’s all this baggage surrounding him. He’s a continual reminder of the extraordinary flaws and incompetence of Oklahoma’s criminal justice system.”
–Ray Legendre
