Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt has halted the execution of death-row inmate Julius Jones hours earlier than it was scheduled, commuting his sentence to life in jail with out the potential of parole.
Doubts over Jones’s guilt within the 1999 homicide of a suburban Oklahoma Metropolis businessman and issues over the deadly substance utilized in Oklahoma executions had raised nationwide calls to commute the inmate’s loss of life sentence.
“After prayerful consideration and reviewing supplies offered by all sides of this case, I’ve decided to commute Julius Jones’ sentence to life imprisonment with out the potential of parole,” Stitt stated on Thursday.
Oklahoma and US legislators in addition to civil rights activists have been calling for stopping the execution of Jones. The state Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-1 earlier this month to advocate that Stitt commute Jones’s sentence to life in jail.
Jones’s lawyer, Amanda Bass, welcomed Stitt’s determination on Thursday, calling it a step “in direction of restoring public religion within the prison justice system”.
“Whereas we had hoped the Governor would undertake the Board’s advice in full by commuting Julius’s sentence to life with the potential of parole in gentle of the overwhelming proof of Julius’s innocence, we’re grateful that the Governor has prevented an irreparable mistake,” Bass stated in an announcement.
Dozens of US states have abolished the loss of life penalty, however 27 states and the federal authorities nonetheless authorise capital punishment for sure extreme prison offences.
Jones was convicted of first-degree homicide and sentenced to loss of life for the killing of businessman Paul Howell throughout a carjacking 22 years in the past. He maintains that he’s harmless and claims to have been framed by the precise killer who testified towards him, however prosecutors say the proof towards Jones is overwhelming.
Nationwide celebrities, together with actuality TV personality Kim Kardashian West and NBA stars have voiced help for Jones.
The NAACP Authorized Protection Fund (LDF), an advocacy organisation involved with racial justice, wrote a letter to Stitt earlier this month elevating doubt over Jones’s conviction. The LDF harassed that the inmate’s members of the family have confirmed that he was residence on the time when the homicide was dedicated. It additionally raised concern over allegations that one of many jurors who convicted Jones referred to him with the n-word.
“This bare racial animosity by a sitting juror plainly denied Mr Jones his constitutional proper ‘to an neutral jury that [could] view him with out racial animus, which so lengthy has distorted our system of prison justice’,” the letter reads, citing a US Supreme Court docket precedent.
Attorneys for loss of life row inmates in Oklahoma have additionally argued that the drug used throughout executions by the state would represent merciless and weird punishment, violating prisoners’ constitutional rights.
Late in October, John Grant, 60, skilled convulsions and vomited as he was executed by deadly injection in Oklahoma. It was the state’s first execution in six years.
Grant, Jones and three different inmates had received a keep of execution from a federal appeals courtroom on October 27, however the Supreme Court docket reversed the choice.
Journalists who witnessed Grant’s execution stated at a information convention that he vomited and skilled full-body convulsions about two dozen occasions earlier than he was pronounced useless. The response started after midazolam, the primary drug administered in a three-drug course of, had been injected.
The incident renewed requires halting executions within the state.
On Wednesday, dozens of scholars from Oklahoma Metropolis excessive faculties staged a walkout from lessons to protest Jones’s scheduled execution, native media reported.
The household of Howell, the sufferer within the crime for which Jones was convicted, stated in an announcement cited by native media shops that it takes consolation within the affirmation of the responsible verdict towards Jones.
“We all know Governor Stitt had a troublesome determination to make,” the assertion stated. “We take consolation that his determination affirmed the guilt of Julius Jones and that he shall not be eligible to use for, or be thought of for, a commutation, pardon or parole for the rest of his life.”