So much has been written about Richard Glossip.
I write this because I cannot not write what I feel on this matter.
My feelings and convictions as they pertain from the death penalty come purely and directly from my religious feeling as a mother of Jews (informed by learning and prayer in the Reform Jewish tradition), a practicing Roman Catholic, and Christian.
Jesus was a victim of the Death Penalty.
In North America, we in the U.S. alone employ the death penalty.
In the Americas we are joined by only a few nations who use the death penalty.
Most of the "civilized" nations of the world abandoned capital punishment long ago.
I believe the death penalty damages the selves of those who countenance it.
I tend to believe that the executioner sustains more spiritual injury than any monstrous felon ever could.
We all know that capital punishment does not make us safer. It does not deter criminals.
Most men and women would, given the awful choice, much prefer death to a life behind bars.
We grant ourselves lenience, not the man slated for death, when we decline to execute a prisoner.
When we execute criminals in the state's name we make murderers of ourselves, while ironically perhaps, granting the peace of death to those whose lives we end in the name of justice.
Thanks to the advances in forensics, we have come to experience the unique spiritual anquish and and hideous remorse of knowing how much more common false convictions are than we might have previously imagined.
Richard Glossip was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Barry Van Treese, his boss.
There were no witnesses to the murder in question. Only hearsay evidence ties Glossip to the crime in question.
The man, Justin Sneed, claims he was commissioned by Glossip to carry out the murder.
Sneed, who beat Van Treese to death with a baseball bat, is serving a life sentence, yet the man he claims hired him to kill Van Treese is scheduled to die tomorrow (September 30) by lethal injection.
Let us say for argument's sake that the man who bludgeoned Van Treese to death is telling the truth. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that both men are guilty. Let us say that under certain circumstances capital punishment may be seen as just. Is justice served by the State of Oklahoma's choice to execute the man who commissioned the killing as it spares the life of the actual killer?
The actual killer, by the way, traded testimony for a lighter sentence. He parlayed this testimony to obtain life in prison. It is truly good that Oklahoma will not kill two men.
Sneed traded his own life, in a sense, for Glossip's.
Richard Glossip has no prior history of violent crime.
Many of those who have been ministering to and counseling Glossip are people who oppose the death penalty under all circumstances. Read what they have to say about Richard Glossip.
Not only did Richard Glossip not commit the murder, he appears to be innocent of the crime.
If you are the praying kind, please keep Richard Glossip, his family, loved ones and defense team, and the State of Oklahoma, in your prayers.
If Governor Mary Fallin elects not to spare the life of Richard Glossip, she will need prayers too.
She wears a gold cross on her neck in her formal portrait. How curious.
Governor Fallin, you might want to take that gold cross on a chain off your neck. You look ridiculous wearing it as you preside over the death of a possibly, probably innocent man.
Please take a minute out of your day to let Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin know how you feel about this case. Go to Sister Helen Prejean's Richard Glossip page and what you can do to prevent this grave injustice from transpiring Wednesday night.