Richard Glossip’s Innocence Claim Draws Growing Attention [UPDATED]

UPDATE: Former Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (pic­tured), for­mer Oklahoma Sooners and Dallas Cowboys foot­ball coach Barry Switzer, and John W. Raley, Jr., the for­mer chief fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, have joined with inno­cence advo­cates Barry Scheck, Co-Director of the Innocence Project, and Samuel Gross, edi­tor of the National Registry of Exonerations, in a let­ter to Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin urg­ing her to stay the exe­cu­tion of Richard Glossip.

Glossip is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Oklahoma on September 16, and is seek­ing a stay to allow con­sid­er­a­tion of his claims of innocence. 

The let­ter points to the exon­er­a­tions of 29 inno­cent defen­dants who were con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death on the basis of tes­ti­mo­ny after ​“anoth­er per­son who was him­self a sus­pect in the mur­der gave a con­fes­sion that also impli­cat­ed the inno­cent defen­dant.” It calls Richard Glossip’s case ​“a clas­sic exam­ple” of that phenomenon. 

The writ­ers say they ​“don’t know for sure whether Richard Glossip is inno­cent or guilty. That is pre­cise­ly the prob­lem. If we keep exe­cut­ing defen­dants in cas­es like this, where the evi­dence of guilt is ten­u­ous and untrust­wor­thy, we will keep killing innocent people.”