Cruel and unusual
by digby
Ritualized state executions of this sort are barbaric too:
On Thursday, Richard Glossip will be put to death for a crime he says he didn’t commit.
The 51-year-old former motel manager has spent more than 17 years on Oklahoma’s death row for a murder conviction. He’s maintained his innocence from the start and plans to fight for his life until the end, but he says he knows that realistically he may not live past January 29. Among U.S. states, only Texas has executed more people than Oklahoma…
The 51-year-old has been on death row ever since he was convicted of first-degree murder nearly 17 years ago on the testimony of a single witness. Glossip has maintained his innocence from the start, and now he’s hoping that a last-minute reprieve from Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) — or the White House — can spare him from becoming the 196th person to be put to death by the state of Oklahoma.
Justin Sneed, a young contract handyman who worked and lived at the Best Budget Inn that Glossip managed in Oklahoma City, confessed to beating motel owner Barry Van Treese to death with a baseball bat on Jan. 7, 1997. Prosecutors said Glossip feared losing his job and recruited Sneed to kill his boss. Sneed would later testify that Glossip promised him $10,000 to commit the crime. Both men were convicted of first-degree murder. In exchange for his testimony, Sneed received a life sentence without parole; Glossip received a death sentence.
A judge told Glossip that if he admitted his involvement in Van Treese’s death, he would be sentenced to life in prison and eligible for parole in 20 years. Glossip said he refused to perjure himself by admitting to something he didn’t do.
I’m against capital punishment for all the usual reasons. But the idea that someone can be executed solely on the word of someone who actually perpetrated the violence and who got a reduced sentence in return for his testimony is absolutely mind-boggling.
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