OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma’s state parole board voted Wednesday not to recommend clemency for death row inmate Richard Glossip, even though the state attorney general said he doesn’t think the condemned man whose case has drawn celebrity interest received a fair trial.
OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma’s state parole board voted Wednesday not to recommend clemency for death row inmate Richard Glossip, even though the state attorney general said he doesn’t think the condemned man whose case has drawn celebrity interest received a fair trial.
The Pardon and Parole Board deadlocked 2-2, meaning it won’t recommend that Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt grant clemency to Glossip, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection on May 18. One board member recused himself because his spouse is a prosecutor who had previous involvement in Glossip’s case, leading Glossip’s lead attorney to object to the move in his opening remarks Wednesday.
There is no formal mechanism to appeal the board’s decision, and Stitt would have needed the board’s recommendation in order to grant clemency. But Glossip’s attorneys filed a motion in state district court asking a judge to prevent his execution from being carried out until a full five-member clemency panel can review his case. They also have a pending petition before the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to halt the execution.
“We will pursue every avenue in the courts to stop this unlawful judicial execution,” Glossip’s lead attorney, Don Knight, said in a statement after today’s vote.
The vote came despite the state’s new Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, taking the unusual step of arguing on behalf of granting clemency — his office typically asks the board to allow executions to proceed. Drummond said that although he doesn’t believe Glossip is innocent, he thinks he didn’t receive a fair trial and deserves a new one.
After the hearing, Drummond issued a statement expressing his disappointment.
“Public confidence in the death penalty requires that these cases receive the highest standard of reliability,” he said. “While the state has not questioned the integrity of previous death penalty cases, the Glossip conviction is very different. I believe it would be a grave injustice to execute an individual whose trial conviction was beset by a litany of errors.”
Glossip, 60, has long maintained his innocence in the 1997 killing of his former boss.
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