On May 18 Richard Glossip is scheduled to die at the Oklahoma State Prison in McAlester. If all goes according to schedule this will be the fourth time he’s faced death in “Big Mac.”

I was there for two of those times.

Glossip was convicted in 1997 and again in 2004 of murder for hire in the death of his boss Barry Van Treese largely on the testimony of Justin Sneed, the guy who actually did the killing and got himself life in a medium security prison for his testimony.

I was covering the execution watch for a now-defunct online magazine and met Glossip’s brothers and anti-death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean, played by Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking.

Last watch they had already picked the witnesses from the press pool when the head of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections came out with a stack of press releases to hand out and informed us the execution was off and there’d be no questions.

Oklahoma does executions on a just-in-time basis. They’d unpacked the three-drug cocktail for lethal injections and found the kill shot, which was supposed to be potassium chloride, a common salt, had been mistakenly substituted with potassium acetate, a common food preservative.

That had happened before, resulting in the prisoner dying screaming.

“Uh Sister this is more your department than mine but…” I asked.

“You want to know about that divine intervention thing?” she replied. “Well it was a food preservative that preserved his life.”

Pause for that full disclosure thing. I’ve mostly heard from the side that thinks Glossip is innocent. The victim’s family thinks he’s guilty as hell and wants Glossip dead. What I’ve heard from the DA’s office was mostly a diatribe about how this is all a ploy by anti-death penalty advocates.

Sister Helen is against the death penalty, but thinks Glossip is innocent.

I think the conviction stinks, for lots of reasons.

Which is what Republican State Attorney General Gentner Drummond told the pardon and parole board to no avail.

Republican State Rep. Kevin McDugle after investigating the case has gone on record saying he flat believes Glossip is innocent and with a bipartisan group of legislators is urging Governor Kevin Stitt to grant clemency.

I hope he does, but an awful lot of people seem intent on killing Glossip. I don’t know why, but if I had to guess I’d say it’s because a lot of people would have to admit they were part of the death row machine of the late Democrat DA of Oklahoma County Bob Macy.

After I got involved in covering this case I read Mark Fuhrman’s book Death and Justice: An Expose of Oklahoma’s Death Row Machine.

It’s scarier than any Stephen King novel. Macy was a flamboyant prosecutor known as “America’s deadliest DA.” Once he’d made up his mind someone was guilty he pursued conviction with self-righteous fury. And he could sell theories of mind-boggling absurdity to a jury.

He was aided by forensic examiner Joyce “Black Magic” Gilchrist who was creative with evidence and testified way beyond the limits of forensic science.

Men convicted of rape and murder have subsequently been released when evidence was re-examined and at least two can’t be — because they’re dead.

Macy resigned mid-term when a man convicted of rape was released after 17 years. Gilchirst was suing to get her job back when she died.

If nothing else it should scare you that people so unwaveringly certain of their own rightness have the power of life and death.

— Steve Browne is a former reporter and contributor to the Marshall Independent