Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry grant­ed a 30-day stay of exe­cu­tion for Kevin Young who was sched­uled to die on July 22. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board rec­om­mend­ed clemen­cy for Young a week ear­li­er after hear­ing tape record­ed state­ments from jurors stat­ing that they hadn’t want­ed to give Young the death sen­tence but didn’t receive clar­i­fi­ca­tion when they asked whether he would be eli­gi­ble for parole if he was sen­tenced to life with­out parole. One juror explained, ​“We felt that the crime did not war­rant the death penal­ty. We did not want this man on the street ever. Period. When we asked for clar­i­fi­ca­tion, we were told that we had all the infor­ma­tion that we need­ed to make a deci­sion. We’re not lawyers, and all we knew is what we saw on TV.”

While the jurors want­ed to sen­tence Young to life with­out parole so he would not be let out of prison, the lack of infor­ma­tion left them believ­ing they had no choice but the death sen­tence. The same juror said he has fre­quent­ly looked back on the deci­sion and wished they had come to a dif­fer­ent con­clu­sion. When the oppor­tu­ni­ty arose to make a state­ment to the Pardon and Parole Board, he felt he had to speak out. ​“When the oppor­tu­ni­ty came up to try to right the wrong I took [it],” he said. The Board has only rec­om­mend­ed clemen­cy 4 times in the last 5 years and Governor Henry has only grant­ed clemen­cy once since tak­ing office in 2003. He grant­ed the stay because, ​“This is a life and death mat­ter, and a delib­er­a­tive review process can­not be com­plet­ed by the sched­uled exe­cu­tion date.” He added, ​“I take all clemen­cy rec­om­men­da­tions very seri­ous­ly and I will do my best to ren­der a fair and just deci­sion.” The new ten­ta­tive exe­cu­tion date for Young has been set for August 21.
(J. Bisbee, ​“Clemency bid for Kevin Young brings 30-day exe­cu­tion stay — jurors request­ed clar­i­fi­ca­tion,” Oklahoman, July 16, 2008). See Life Without Parole and Clemency.

UPDATE: Governor com­mut­ed the exe­cu­tion on July 24, 2008.

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