Lawyers seek to cancel execution date for Oklahoma inmate Glossip

By Heide Brandes

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Lawyers for an Oklahoma death row inmate asked the state's Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday to cancel the execution date for Richard Glossip, saying the court violated state law when it issued a September date for his lethal injection.

The court issued a stay for Glossip on Sept. 16, about three hours before his planned execution, so that it could consider evidence the lawyers said points to his innocence, and it then set a new execution date of Sept. 30.

Under Oklahoma law, attorneys argued, a new execution date must be set either 30 or 60 days after a stay has been denied or vacated, not 14 days after as the court had done, Glossip's lawyers said in the filing.

Glossip, 52, was found guilty of arranging the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, the owner of an Oklahoma City motel he was managing.

His lawyers have said no physical evidence tied him to the crime and he was convicted largely on the testimony of Justin Sneed, then 19 and the motel’s maintenance man, who confessed to carrying out the killing after Glossip hired him to do it.

Sneed avoided the death penalty by testifying against Glossip and is serving a life sentence.

An appeals court had thrown out a previous conviction, saying evidence against Glossip was "extremely weak." The case went back to a jury in 2004, which found him guilty and upheld the death sentence.

Governor Mary Fallin, a Republican, said Glossip was rightfully convicted by two juries and he should be executed. She has said her legal team examined the evidence and determined it was not substantial enough to warrant a stay of execution.

Glossip had previously tried to stop his execution by saying one of the drugs used in the state's lethal injection mix can cause undue suffering.

If carried out this month, Glossip's execution would be the first in Oklahoma since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June the use of midazolam, a sedative in the lethal injection procedure, did not violate the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Lawyers for Glossip and two other Oklahoma death row inmates had challenged midazolam, saying it could not achieve the level of unconsciousness required for surgery, making it unsuitable for executions.

(Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)