Execution scheduled this afternoon

Death Row Inmate Richard Glossip

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — The latest on the scheduled execution of Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip:

Oklahoma is preparing to carry out its first execution since a sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state’s three-drug formula used in lethal injections.

Richard Glossip is scheduled to be executed at 3 p.m. Wednesday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was convicted of ordering the beating death of a motel owner in 1997 in what prosecutors say was a murder-for-hire.

Glossip, 52, was the lead plaintiff in a case before the nation’s high court that argued the sedative midazolam violated the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment because it didn’t adequately render an inmate unconscious before the second and third drugs were administered. The justices upheld the formula in a 5-4 opinion issued in June.

Glossip’s lawyers went to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday to request an emergency stay of execution.

They say they have new evidence, including a signed affidavit from an inmate who served with Justin Sneed, the man convicted of killing the motel owner.

Glossip supporters say Sneed’s fellow prisoner heard Sneed say Glossip was innocent and that he’d set Glossip up.

Glossip’s lawyers say the court needs time to hear new evidence before the execution.

Gov. Mary Fallin has already denied a separate request for a stay.