THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Oklahoma, which was on the verge of killing a man whose case is riddled with reasonable doubts, suspended the official murder for a month pending a review of one of the drugs involved.

The executive order signed by Fallin postpones Glossip's execution date until Nov. 6. The order states that the delay will give the state's Department of Corrections time to determine whether potassium acetate, one of three drugs to be used in the lethal injection, "is compliant with the execution protocol." If the drug is found not to be compliant, then the state says it will obtain potassium chloride as a substitute before the Nov. 6 deadline.

If Glossip is killed, it will be the first execution in Oklahoma since the nation's highest court upheld the state's three-drug lethal injection formula.

Glossip, 52, was charged in the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, his employer at an Oklahoma City motel. With a dearth of physical evidence, Glossip was convicted primarily on testimony given by Justin Sneed, 38, who was given a life sentence in exchange for his confession that Glossip hired him to beat Van Treese to death. Glossip has maintained his innocence.

An argument filed to an Oklahoma appeals court included a signed affidavit from a convict in Sneed’s prison claiming that Sneed had been “bragging about how Glossip took the fall” for Van Treese’s murder, Sister Helen Prejean, Glossip’s spiritual adviser, told Al Jazeera before his original execution date.

But in a 3-2 decision earlier this week, the same court denied Glossip's request for an evidentiary hearing and emergency stay of execution, paving the way for his execution to proceed. The majority wrote that the new evidence simply expands on theories raised in his original appeals.

On Tuesday, Glossip's attorneys made a last-ditch request to both the U.S. Supreme Court and Fallin to issue a stay of execution.

“Recently discovered evidence demonstrates substantial doubt about Sneed's credibility,” his attorneys wrote in a petition to the Supreme Court.

Fallin has repeatedly denied Glossip's request for a 60-day stay and said in a statement Tuesday she had no plans to commute his sentence.

The original prosecutor must have a lot of powerful friends because Oklahoma is going to a lot of trouble to help him bury his original mistake.