As 6 Million Seek Clemency for Julius Jones, New Evidence that Another Man Confessed Points to His Innocence

As sup­port­ers of Oklahoma death-row pris­on­er Julius Jones sub­mit­ted more than six mil­lion sig­na­tures sup­port­ing his peti­tion for clemen­cy, new evi­dence emerged that anoth­er man had com­mit­ted the killing that sent Jones to death row.

On February 25, 2021, Jones’ sup­port­ers joined mem­bers of his fam­i­ly and Oklahoma City faith lead­ers for a ral­ly and march to the offices of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, where they deliv­ered box­es con­tain­ing peti­tions signed by more than 6 mil­lion peo­ple urg­ing the board and Governor Kevin Stitt to grant Jones clemen­cy and com­mute his death sen­tence. ​“It is a beau­ti­ful day,” said Rev. Cece Jones-Davis, founder of the Justice for Julius Coalition. ​“It is part of a dream being real­ized in a very long and ardu­ous jour­ney to bring Julius Jones home to his fam­i­ly. Knowing that the par­don and parole board will review his appli­ca­tion begin­ning March 8 and start a process of deter­min­ing whether he lives or dies, we are hope­ful, we are cautiously optimistic.”

Jones’ clemen­cy peti­tion and his claim of inno­cence gained addi­tion­al fac­tu­al sup­port on March 1, when his defense team released a let­ter and a video from a pris­on­er in Arkansas, Roderick Wesley (pic­tured), who said that Jones’ co-defen­dant, Chris Jordan, had admit­ted to Wesley that he had killed a man and that some­one was doing time on death row for his crime. In a let­ter to Jones’ lawyers, Wesley wrote that Jordan told him: ​“my co-defen­dant is on death row behind a mur­der I com­mit­ted.” Wesley said that Jordan had made the admis­sion when they were in prison togeth­er in 2010, but that he did not know to whom Jordan was refer­ring until he saw a pic­ture of Jordan fea­tured on a doc­u­men­tary about Jones’ case, The Last Defense, that aired on ABC on July 14, 2020. 

“If this man is wrong­ful­ly exe­cut­ed, by con­tin­u­ing to con­ceal this infor­ma­tion, I feel as if I would have had a hand in putting this man to death and I can’t live with that on my con­science,” Wesley wrote. 

Jones, who is African American, was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 2002 for the mur­der of Paul Howell, a promi­nent white busi­ness­man, in 1999. The case has been plagued by alle­ga­tions of racism and offi­cial mis­con­duct. Jones, who was an hon­ors stu­dent and cap­tain of his bas­ket­ball team in high school, has stead­fast­ly main­tained his inno­cence. Wesley is the third per­son to whom Jordan con­fessed about killing Howell and set­ting up Jones.

In January 2021, a poll by the Oklahoma City-based firm Amber Integrated found that 60% of reg­is­tered vot­ers sur­veyed sup­port­ed com­mut­ing Jones’ sen­tence ​“to some­thing oth­er than death.” The firm report­ed that 70% of both inde­pen­dents and Democrats and 49% of Republicans said they sup­port­ed clemen­cy. Only 29% of Republicans said they opposed commutation.

Amber Integrated spokesper­son Jackson Lisle said the poll reflect­ed ​“rel­a­tive­ly broad sup­port for the state not to exe­cute Mr. Jones.” ​“This is spe­cif­ic to the case being made that Julius Jones may be inno­cent, and there is just too much doubt to move for­ward with this exe­cu­tion,” he said.

The Pardon and Parole Board will meet on March 8 for ​“Stage 1 review” of Jones’ clemen­cy peti­tion, after which it will deter­mine whether Jones will be per­mit­ted to present wit­ness­es in a Stage 2 proceeding.