Surviving Execution by Ian Woods (Atlantic) $33
In what ways is the US the same as North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia? All of these countries, plus a few more, routinely execute convicted criminals. In this ‘‘barbaric’’ pursuit, Oklahoma is second only to Texas.
Ian Woods recounts the story of one Oklahoma inmate, sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit. It is a savage, clear and poignant indictment of the death penalty, seen through the prism of the appalling experience of Richard Glossip,
In January 1997, an Oklahoma motel owner, Barry Van Treese, was beaten to death in his own motel. Glossip and another suspect, Justin Sneed, were soon arrested. As the clumsy and ‘‘corrupt’’ investigation began, it became clear that, in exchange for a lesser sentence, Sneed was setting up his boss and benefactor, Glossip.
The detectives running the questioning led Glossip through a series of leading questions. Glossip was denied a lawyer. They were determined to prove that he had contracted Sneed to murder, despite Sneed’s own confession to the killing! They lacked a convincing motivation. No forensic evidence linked Glossip to the crime.
Then his problems began in earnest. A ‘‘bumbling novice’’ of a lawyer was appointed – one who had no idea of court procedures. At no stage did he press for the video of Glossip’s interrogation to be seen in court.
Supervising this mess was a prosecuting attorney famous for his success in winning death sentences, a jury picked for its religious devotion and a judge clearly biased towards the prosecution.
Duly sentenced, Glossip then lives through the extraordinary saga of Oklahoma’s clumsy attempts to finish off its condemned convicts. He sits out 18 years on death row. No court or state governor is prepared to admit a miscarriage of justice or even to thwart Oklahoma in its grisly attempts at execution.
Woods, a British journalist inspired by this sad tale and alarmed by the evident unfairness of the whole process, writes with a journalist’s eye for clarity and understandability – despite the arcane darkness of the American legal system and the technicalities of execution methodology.
He intertwines Glossip’s story with developments elsewhere, losing sight of neither. It is not a legal textbook yet it explains the detail without being overwhelmed by it. Woods clearly believes in Glossip’s innocence – but that does not detract from his narrative.
A brutal assault on the primitive practice, well targeted at the general reader, it will reverberate for a long time.
– Steve Walker
It is a savage, clear and poignant indictment of the death penalty.