Within the parking zone outdoors the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, I stood on my toes in a throng of reporters, straining to listen to dying row inmate Richard Glossip’s phrases by the speaker of a telephone his good friend held aloft.

It was 3:45 p.m. on Sept. 30, 2015, and Glossip ought to have been useless by now from a cocktail of deadly medicine pumped into his physique.

I joined reporters, Glossip’s household and supporters outdoors the jail in McAlester that day — a heat and breezy afternoon — because the condemned man was in a position to make a telephone name from contained in the maximum-security facility’s dying row. Glossip appeared relieved to be alive however, understandably, puzzled why. He’d exhausted his final enchantment and eaten his final meal: fish and chips, a Wendy’s Baconator burger and a strawberry shake.

He discovered his life was spared due to a technicality: One of many three medicine Oklahoma officers procured for the execution was the flawed one.

“That’s simply loopy,” Glossip stated over his good friend’s telephone.

It was the third time the state of Oklahoma had tried to execute Glossip and the most recent lapse in a macabre historical past of failure in its dying penalty equipment. As a journalist who coated Oklahoma’s jail system and dying row for 25 years, I reported on a lot of these breakdowns.

Seven years later, the state stays intent on executing Glossip, scheduling its fourth try for Sept. 22 regardless of persistent claims that the 59-year-old is harmless and allegations that prosecutors ordered the destruction of important proof within the 1997 murder-for-hire case that resulted in his dying sentence.

Glossip’s claims of innocence have drawn an unusually bipartisan array of supporters, together with 28 Republican state lawmakers, most of whom assist the dying penalty. The legislators commissioned an exhaustive evaluation that not too long ago turned up new details about prosecutors’ alleged function in destroying proof and monetary information bringing into query Glossip’s motive within the case. The lawmakers have known as on the governor to order an impartial evaluation of Glossip’s case and for a state appeals court docket to conduct a listening to to look at the brand new proof.

Calls to halt his scheduled execution come at a time of nationwide reckoning over the dying penalty. The Supreme Court docket’s rulings on the problem — together with a 6-3 determination in Could barring condemned prisoners from searching for federal court docket evaluation for ineffective counsel in some circumstances — are more and more at odds with public sentiment in lots of states. In the meantime, the tempo of latest dying sentences and executions carried out nationally is on monitor to hit a document low for the eighth yr in a row, even with the reopening of courts shuttered throughout the pandemic, in accordance with the Demise Penalty Info Heart.

Oklahoma is amongst a small variety of states that routinely perform the dying penalty which can be bucking that development, and it’s on tempo to outdo all of them regardless of its ugly historical past of failures.

The state not too long ago set execution dates for Glossip and 24 different inmates, together with a number of with psychological sickness, mind injury and claims of innocence. They’re scheduled to die at a quick clip — about one every month by December 2024 — a fee that will eclipse the variety of executions by all states mixed since 2020.

Many observers, together with those that assist the dying penalty, doubt the state’s means to hold out executions in a constitutional method, even for these inmates whose guilt stays unchallenged. If the previous is any choose, they’re in all probability proper.

In additional than twenty years overlaying Oklahoma’s dying row, listed here are just a few of the occasions I wrote about, together with some that I witnessed:

• In 2014, I heard one inmate say simply earlier than he was executed: “Malcom Scott and De’Marchoe Carpenter are harmless.” The inmate had testified years earlier that the 2 males took half in a killing with him. They had been later exonerated, however solely after spending greater than 20 years in jail.
• When the state wanted to change to a brand new deadly drug in 2014, an lawyer for Oklahoma’s jail system later stated that he appeared for a substitute by trying to find details about deadly medicine on the web.
• Just a few months later, I used to be among the many media witnesses who watched Clayton Lockett writhe, moan, speak and attempt to stand up from the execution desk for 3 minutes after the medicine had been administered and he had been declared unconscious. The jail was utilizing a brand new, unproven drug that some consultants stated wouldn’t anesthetize an inmate because the painful second and third medicine had been administered. Jail officers closed the blinds and after about 20 minutes informed us to depart the dying chamber. Lockett died 43 minutes after the execution started.
• My reporting associate, Cary Aspinwall, and I later reported that the warden known as the execution a “bloody mess” and that the physician had improperly inserted the IV into Lockett, complaining about getting blood on his jacket.
• State officers used the flawed third drug to execute Charles Warner lower than a yr later in January 2015 however didn’t make that public. They had been poised to make use of the flawed drug once more in Glossip’s third scheduled execution earlier than then-Gov. Mary Fallin halted it on the final minute.
• A grand jury report blasted state officers’ actions as “inexcusable,” discovering that Fallin’s high lawyer needed to proceed utilizing the inaccurate drug anyway. The state’s personal lawyer basic stated some officers had been “careless, cavalier and in some circumstances dismissive of established procedures that had been meant to protect towards the very errors that occurred.”

After a six yr hiatus, Oklahoma executed John Marion Grant in October. A number of witnesses stated Grant convulsed and vomited throughout the course of. Now, the state is making ready to execute Glossip amid doubts about his guilt.

One of many GOP lawmakers calling on the state to evaluation Glossip’s case, regardless of a protracted historical past of supporting the dying penalty, stated he’ll advocate to finish capital punishment in Oklahoma if Glossip is executed.

“I’m 99% positive that he’s not responsible sitting on dying row,” state Rep. Kevin McDugle stated in an interview with ProPublica. “My stance will not be anti-death penalty in any respect. My stance shall be (completely different) in the event that they put Richard to dying, as a result of which means our course of in Oklahoma is flawed.”

In a sharply worded dissent in a case difficult Oklahoma’s alternative of execution medicine, then-Justice Stephen Breyer argued that the dying penalty was not constitutional. Amongst his causes, Breyer cited research displaying dying penalty crimes have a disproportionately excessive exoneration fee.

In reality, courts have reversed verdicts or exonerated prisoners due to prosecutorial misconduct in 11 dying sentences in the identical county the place Glossip was convicted, in accordance with a examine launched final month by the Demise Penalty Info Heart. One other 11 from that county, residence to the state Capitol, had been put to dying utilizing testimony from a disgraced police chemist, the examine discovered.

Although Glossip’s current appeals have been unsuccessful, a state court docket choose and a federal choose have famous in appellate rulings the comparatively skinny nature of the proof towards him. “Not like many circumstances by which the dying penalty has been imposed, the proof of petitioner’s guilt was not overwhelming,” the federal choose wrote.

In a letter final yr to Gov. Kevin Stitt, McDugle joined greater than 30 state lawmakers, almost all Republicans, in asking him to nominate an impartial physique to evaluation Glossip’s case and study what they are saying is compelling proof he’s harmless.

“Lots of those that have signed this letter assist the dying penalty however, as such, we now have an ethical obligation to ensure the State of Oklahoma by no means executes an individual for against the law he didn’t commit,” the letter states. “Mr. Glossip’s case offers us pause, as a result of it seems the police investigation was not performed in a way that offers us confidence that we all know the reality.”

Glossip was convicted of homicide within the 1997 killing of Barry Van Treese, who owned the Oklahoma Metropolis price range motel the place Glossip labored. Justin Sneed, a upkeep man with a violent document, beat Van Treese to dying with a baseball bat and testified Glossip paid him to hold out the killing. Prosecutors alleged that Glossip feared he could be fired as a result of Van Treese had found he was embezzling from the motel.

In trade for his plea and testimony towards Glossip, Sneed acquired life in jail.

After Stitt didn’t order a brand new investigation into Glossip’s case, the lawmakers commissioned a evaluation by a legislation agency. The professional-bono report, launched final month, relies on a evaluation of 12,000 paperwork, 36 witness interviews, seven juror interviews and different proof.

It concludes that Glossip’s 2004 conviction “can’t be relied on to assist a murder-for-hire conviction. Nor can it present a foundation for the federal government to take the lifetime of Richard E. Glossip.”

Glossip’s attorneys have filed a movement searching for a brand new listening to on the premise of precise innocence, together with witnesses they are saying had been by no means known as in earlier hearings. The movement additionally seeks a listening to to look into who ordered a field of key proof destroyed, claims of ineffective help of counsel, due course of violations and testing indicating that Glossip is intellectually disabled.

They’re additionally searching for paperwork from the Oklahoma County District Legal professional’s Workplace associated to the destruction of proof in addition to a videotape from a fuel station close to the crime scene they are saying was by no means handed over.

The legislation agency’s report quotes an Oklahoma Metropolis police officer and a former assistant district lawyer speaking in regards to the proof destruction, which included information that would have established whether or not Glossip embezzled cash from the motel, as alleged by prosecutors.

Such claims frustrate the present district lawyer, David Prater, a chatty, accessible official I’ve interviewed many instances over time about Oklahoma’s justice system.

Prater, who was not in workplace on the time the proof was destroyed, stated Glossip’s execution ought to proceed as scheduled and known as the allegation that his workplace ordered the destruction “an outright lie.”

“There is no such thing as a documentation as to that,” he stated. “The DA’s workplace doesn’t order the destruction of proof in circumstances like that.”

Glossip and his lawyer, Don Knight, declined interview requests. Knight stated in a written assertion offered to ProPublica that the execution ought to be delayed whereas the state appeals court docket evaluations new info turned up within the report.

“Richard Glossip has been by three tortuous execution dates already. It doesn’t serve justice to set a fourth execution date for an harmless man earlier than all this new proof may be totally thought of in a court docket of legislation,” the assertion stated.

“Public response to this new proof makes clear that Oklahomans, even those that assist the dying penalty, don’t wish to see an harmless man executed.”

Sister Helen Prejean, the anti-death-penalty activist who was portrayed in “Lifeless Man Strolling,” stated she plans to be on the jail to assist Glossip in September, as she was on his three prior execution dates. (Glossip known as Prejean earlier than his first scheduled execution and requested if she would function one in every of his chosen witnesses, as she had for six condemned males in different states.)

However Prejean predicts that day received’t come and says she plans to work feverishly to attract consideration to his case and win a reprieve.

Sounding extra like a publicity strategist than a nun, Prejean stated the neatest strategy includes letting the “conservative pro-death-penalty legislators” make the case for Glossip moderately than superstar activists who’ve supported Glossip and different condemned inmates.

“I do know I’ve to do every little thing I understand how to do to save lots of the lifetime of this man,” she stated, including: “When it appears like every little thing is signed, sealed and delivered what do you do? You go to the general public and also you elevate questions.”