It’s not looking too good for death row inmate Richard Glossip, who’s scheduled to be put to death in Oklahoma today for a murder he likely didn’t commit.
The 52-year-old impoverished prisoner has many supporters who’ve been trying to get him a mere 60-day reprieve from this afternoon’s execution, including the nun portrayed in ‘Dead Man Walking’ by Susan Sarandon -- and the actress herself.
On Glossip’s behalf, Sister Helen Prejean, Ms. Sarandon, and pro bono attorneys have tirelessly pleaded with Oklahoma’s governor to allow the doomed inmate to present new evidence that would exonerate him.
He’s actually been tried twice for murder and convicted each time: the first in 1999 and the second in 2004. But in both trials no proof was presented showing he’d engaged in any criminal activity ... except for the dubious testimony of the actual murderer.
Justin Sneed, who confessed to brutally killing Barry Van Treese in 1997, agreed to implicate his victim’s employee Richard Glossip in exchange for a lighter sentence, concocting a story that the minimum-wage earner “paid” him to have an overbearing boss killed.
Sneed has reportedly joked with cell mates that he “set up Glossip” as a fall guy for the beating death of Treese, in order to avoid the death penalty himself. Indeed, in the years that have passed since both men were sentenced, he’s even expressed a desire to recant the ludicrous murder-for-hire scheme he invented.
Death row inmate Richard Glossip is facing execution today, however. So, if Justin Sneed is going to grow a conscious and come clean, then he better do it now.
