Court grants stay of execution 3-hours before murderer’s scheduled injection

An Oklahoma appeals court on Wednesday halted the planned execution of a convicted murderer, delaying his lethal injection for two weeks so it can consider evidence the inmate's lawyers say points to his innocence.

The court's decision came about three hours before the state planned to execute Richard Glossip. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals set Sept. 30 as the new execution date.

"Due to Glossip's last-minute filing, and in order for this Court to give fair consideration to the materials included with his subsequent application for post-conviction relief, we hereby grant an emergency stay of execution for two weeks," it said.

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

He tried unsuccessfully to have the U.S. Supreme Court rule that one of the drugs used in the state's lethal injection mix can cause undue harm and suffering.

Republican Governor Mary Fallin said on Tuesday her legal team examined the evidence and determined it was neither new nor substantial enough to warrant a stay of execution.

Glossip's lawyers 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 and said Glossip hired him to do it.

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

The owner of the Best Budget Inn, Barry Van Treese, was bludgeoned to death in 1997. Glossip was convicted and sentenced to death in 1998.

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

Glossip's execution would be the first in Oklahoma since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the use of midazolam, a sedative used 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 the use of midazolam, saying it could not achieve the level of unconsciousness required for surgery, making it unsuitable for executions.