Posted on 08/07/2015 2:36:13 PM PDT by nickcarraway
An Academy Award winning actress is calling for Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin to stop the execution of a man she believes is “clearly innocent.”
Actress Susan Sarandon is now joining the fight to save the life of Oklahoma inmate Richard Glossip.
“I want people to know I didn’t kill this man. I didn’t participate or plan anything to do with this crime,” said Richard Glossip in an interview earlier this year.
Glossip was convicted in connection with the murder of Barry Van Treese.
Van Treese was found dead at an Oklahoma City motel back in 1997.
Despite that conviction, Glossip has always maintained his innocence.
Prosecutors said Glossip hired maintenance worker, Justin Sneed, to take a baseball bat and bludgeon their boss, Barry Van Treese, to death because Glossip thought he would be fired. At trial, Sneed testified that he killed Van Treese at Glossip’s behest and received a life sentence. Glossip was sentenced to death.
Glossip appealed the sentence, but he has since exhausted all of his options.
He is scheduled to die on Sept. 16.
Sarandon called Governor Fallin a “horrible person” for refusing to intervene in Glossip’s execution, according to an exclusive interview with Sky News.
“The governor of Oklahoma is just a horrible person, and a woman, so it’s even more discouraging,” Sarandon said.
The actress is asking people to write to Governor Fallin and ask her to grant a stay of execution.
“I’m hoping that some kind of exposure will give him the opportunity to maybe get his sentence at least commuted, because he’s clearly innocent, and on top of that the guy who actually killed the person is in a minimum security prison for the rest of his life,” she told Sky News.
Governor Fallin’s communications director, Alex Weinz, told The Huffington Post that the governor will not intervene.
“Is the governor going to undo decades of legal actions — that dozens of jurors and judges have decided — because Susan Sarandon is calling on the governor?” Weinz told The Huffington Post on Thursday. “The answers is first, [Fallin] doesn’t have the authority, and second, she wouldn’t even if she could.”
The Huffington Post reports that Sarandon was alerted to Glossip’s case through Sister Helen Prejean, who wrote Dead Man Walking.
Sarandon portrayed Prejean in the book’s film adaptation, which won her an Academy Award in 1996.
Sister Prejean has visited Glossip in prison and has become his spiritual adviser.
In January, Sister Prejean helped deliver petitions to Governor Mary Fallin’s office, asking for a stay of execution for Richard Glossip.
“Richard Glossip’s case cries out for deeper, moral consideration, because it raises the spectre of an actually innocent man being executed for a crime he did not commit—based on the testimony of only one man, the man who actually killed the victim,” Sister Prejean said in a statement.
The Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s office released a statement to Sky News about the execution saying:
“A jury has twice convicted and sentenced Richard Glossip in the murder of Barry Van Treese.
Glossip has challenged his conviction all the way to the US Supreme Court, exhausting all appeals, and has been unsuccessful at each challenge.
The attorney general’s office will continue its work to protect the state’s ability to ensure the sentence handed down by a jury can be carried out so that after nearly 20 years, justice can be served for the family of Barry Van Treese.”
Prejean and Sarandon are both scheduled to appear Friday on CNN to discuss Glossip’s case, according to The Huffington Post.
Susan Sarandon is a saggy-breasted has been whose boy toy dumped her. In other words, a hag!
I would say shut up and act, but she can’t even do that very well.
She and Timmy deserved each other. IIRC, both vowed to move from the USA if GWB were elected, and both didnt
She looks like a boston terrier with a boob job.
When I read the title Susan Sarandon came to mind, sure enough it was her.
Why is this news KFOR? Who cares what a washed-up, dried out, communist, old hag thinks about our governor?
Get a life news people!
The guy who admitted to commission of the crime in in minimum security. Absent physical evidence, I am suspicious the prosecutor gave the guy a great deal in exchange for his testimony against the condemned man.
It is cases like this that have turned me against the death penalty in most cases.
You can bet the prosecutor has withheld exculpatory evidence.
The guy who admitted to commission of the crime in in minimum security. Absent physical evidence, I am suspicious the prosecutor gave the guy a great deal in exchange for his testimony against the condemned man.
It is cases like this that have turned me against the death penalty in most cases.
You can bet the prosecutor has withheld exculpatory evidence.
“”and a woman, so it’s even more discouraging,” Sarandon said.””
It could be said Sarandon is a woman also and that’s always been discouraging to the rest of us!!! Surely we could have done better than making this hag a “star.”
“Susan Sarandon”
An American hating Communist with saggy boobs and skin to match. A has-been for 40 years.
“She and Timmy deserved each other. IIRC, both vowed to move from the USA if GWB were elected, and both didn’t”
Now isn’t that just like commie liberals! Threaten to move ( i.e. stamp their feet) if the people don’t vote “their way,” and then go into hiding when their “wishes” are not “honored.”
That looks like Robert Redford did a Caitlyn Jenner.
Affirmative exculpatory evidence or not, how do you condemn a guy in a he said - he said type situation unless there’s a decent amount of physical evidence or else the witness is totally believable and the defendant seems like an absolute shyster? (I know nothing about the case, so that scenario may not be in play here, just a general observation about believing the guy who admitted committing the crime claiming someone else made him do it, and sentencing that guy, who claims innocence to a heavier sentence than the witness. The juries must have seen a lot more than we can see here, or I can’t believe two of them would have done that.)
Just for the general FYI, this is the case that led to SCOTUS to give Oklahoma the go ahead with the “three drug” lethal injection incorporating midazolam instead of phenobarbitol or other more powerful sedatives that might not be available.
It’s also the case where “The Wise Latina” dissented with a rant about the ruling opening the door for drawing and quartering as a form of execution. Yeah.
As for Glossip’s guilt or innocence, here’s the facts of the case and the procedural challenges in the appeal, from Findlaw: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ok-court-of-criminal-appeals/1466730.html
The guy sure doesn’t sound innocent to me.
Defending the life of a murderer but OK with the parting out of a baby in its mothers womb. A true INSANE lib.
And did a fine job of it, too.
However, I once played the voice of God in a school skit, so clearly I outrank her.
Has there been a maggot in the last 20 years that Sleazin’ Sarandon hasn’t defended?
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