The decision came after hearing from Jones, 41, who testified via video link from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. The board recommended in 3-1 votes that Stitt grant Jones, who was convicted of murdering father and businessman Paul Howell in 1999, clemency and commute his sentence to life in prison with the possibility of parole. To read the original article, click here.Oklahoma's parole board has voted to spare the life of death row inmate Julius Jones. Jones and a number of high-profile supporters joined the effort to get his sentence commuted. Jones’s case was featured in an ABC documentary in 2018, millions of people signed a petition in support of Mr. Jones’s culpability and fate told another seated juror, “They should just take the n-r out and shoot him behind the jail.”Īfter Mr. One seated juror who was tasked with deciding Mr. In a case with a Black defendant and a white victim, the prosecutors struck all qualified African Americans from the jury pool, except for one. ![]() Jones’s trial in troubling ways, EJI director Bryan Stevenson wrote in a letter of support to the board and the governor. – Bryan Stevenson, Letter of support for Julius Jones And in recent years, four people have come forward to support that Jordan framed Julius Jones and bragged that he made a deal with prosecutors to get out of prison after only 15 years, the Black Wall Street Times reports.įor every nine people who have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, one person has been identified as innocent. Jones’s appearance at the time of the crime-it matched codefendant Chris Jordan, the State’s key witness against Mr. The only eyewitness description of the shooter did not match Mr. Jones said in his commutation application, planted incriminating evidence in his home. Jones, a Black man, has long maintained his innocence, alleging that he was framed by the actual killer, who testified that Mr. Julius Jones, now 41, was just 19 when Paul Howell, a white insurance executive, was fatally shot in Edmond, Oklahoma, an affluent suburb north of Oklahoma City. The board held a three-hour-long clemency hearing on November 1 and voted again to recommend that the governor should grant clemency and commute Mr. Stitt did not act on the board’s recommendation, saying it should be addressed in a clemency hearing. One week after the board issued its decision, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals set a November 18 execution date for Mr. The decision came after a four-hour hearing that included testimony from the victim’s family, an Oklahoma County prosecutor, and advocates for Mr. She also pointed to the “excessive nature” of the death penalty for someone who was a teenager at the time, given “what we know now about brain science and brain development.” ![]() Jones and believed it was “not in the best interest of the state” to execute him, The Frontier reported. Doyle said she had doubts about the case against Mr. In its first-ever commutation hearing in a death penalty case, the board voted 3-1 in favor of the commutation recommendation after Scott Williams recused himself because of a professional relationship with Mr. “I cannot ignore those doubts, especially when the stakes are life and death.” “I believe in death penalty cases there should be no doubt, and put simply, I have doubts in this case,” board Chairman Adam Luck said. Jones’s death sentence be commuted to life in prison with parole on September 13, after board members expressed doubts about his guilt in a 1999 shooting. ![]() ![]() The Oklahoma Board of Pardon and Parole recommended that Mr. Jones and commuted his death sentence to life in prison without parole. Hours before the State of Oklahoma was scheduled to execute Julius Jones today, Gov.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |