Julius Jones Clemency Petition Garners Support from Civil Rights and Faith Leaders, Criminal Justice Experts

Lawyers for Oklahoma death-row pris­on­er Julius Jones (pic­tured) have peti­tioned the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board for clemen­cy, argu­ing that Jones was wrong­ly con­vict­ed and that his tri­al was taint­ed by racial bias. The peti­tion, filed on October 15, 2019, has drawn sup­port from a diverse range of civic, civ­il rights, and faith lead­ers and crim­i­nal justice experts. 

Jones, who is black, was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death by a near­ly all-white jury for the 1999 killing of a white busi­ness­man. Jones’ court-appoint­ed tri­al lawyers failed to call any of sev­er­al avail­able ali­bi wit­ness­es, did not cross-exam­ine his co-defen­dant, Christopher Jordan, and did not call Jones to tes­ti­fy on his own behalf. An eye­wit­ness descrip­tion of the shoot­er matched Jordan’s appear­ance, not Jones’. Jordan made a deal with pros­e­cu­tors to tes­ti­fy against Jones and served 15 years. Years after the tri­al, a juror report­ed that anoth­er juror had made racist com­ments, includ­ing say­ing ​“they should just take the n****r out and shoot him behind the jail.” The report­ing juror said she had told the judge about the com­ment at the time, but no action was taken. 

The clemen­cy peti­tion was accom­pa­nied by let­ters of sup­port from faith and civ­il rights lead­ers, and Oklahoma County com­mis­sion­er, Witness to Innocence, and Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform. They join the Oklahoma NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus, and Oklahoma Representative George Young, who had pre­vi­ous­ly raised con­cerns about Jones’ case. In addi­tion, the Catholic Archbishop of Oklahoma City Paul S. Coakley issued a state­ment sup­port­ing Jones’ clemen­cy appli­ca­tion and real­i­ty tele­vi­sion celebri­ty Kim Kardashian West post­ed a tweet ask­ing her 62 mil­lion twit­ter fol­low­ers to ask the par­don board and Governor Kevin Stitt to give ​“care­ful and thought­ful con­sid­er­a­tion” to Jones’ petition.

Jones was pros­e­cut­ed under the admin­is­tra­tion of the late ​“Cowboy Bob” Macy, who sent 54 peo­ple to death row dur­ing the 21 years he served as Oklahoma County District Attorney. A ThinkProgress report in 2015 chron­i­cled the his­to­ry of mis­con­duct in cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions dur­ing that era. Oklahoma County is the only coun­ty in the United States out­side of Texas to have exe­cut­ed more than 41 pris­on­ers since the death penal­ty was rein­sti­tut­ed in the United States in the 1970s. A DPIC analy­sis of death row and exe­cu­tion data has found that the coun­ty has the high­est num­ber of pris­on­ers exe­cut­ed or fac­ing exe­cu­tion per capi­ta of any coun­ty with a com­bined 25 or more death row prisoners/​executions.

The let­ters sup­port­ing Jones’ clemen­cy peti­tion direct­ed the atten­tion of the gov­er­nor and the par­don board to a range of con­cerns about his case. A group of five evan­gel­i­cal Christian lead­ers sub­mit­ted a let­ter express­ing ​“dis­gust” at the racist state­ments made by the juror, and the judge’s lack of response. ​“Racial bias has absolute­ly no place in our jus­tice sys­tem, and it is clear that Julius’ con­sti­tu­tion­al right to a fair tri­al was denied,” the let­ter states. ​“It is also worth not­ing that there is a new detailed sta­tis­ti­cal study of racial bias in the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty in Oklahoma. We now know that a black defen­dant like Julius, accused of killing a white male vic­tim in Oklahoma is near­ly three times more like­ly to receive a death sen­tence than if his vic­tim were a non­white male. This prej­u­dice took place dur­ing the time that Julius was tried and sentenced.” 

A let­ter from the Black Ministerial Alliance of Oklahoma City sim­i­lar­ly high­light­ed con­cerns about both racial bias and inno­cence. ​“Governor Stitt, we write to you today seek­ing jus­tice in Oklahoma, in the form of account­abil­i­ty. Due to the lack of account­abil­i­ty, a grave injus­tice con­tin­ues to tran­spire in our state, and it has spanned two decades. A man by the name of Julius Jones has been on death row in Oklahoma, despite com­pelling evi­dence of an unre­li­able mur­der con­vic­tion and racial bias that has adverse­ly affect­ed his case,” the Alliance wrote. ​“Mr. Jones’ trou­bling case sad­ly includes instances of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, com­pro­mised foren­sic evi­dence and dis­pro­por­tion­ate sen­tenc­ing. Statistics also show that Oklahoma has wield­ed the death penal­ty against African American men disproportionately.”

Oklahoma County District One Commissioner Carrie Blumert wrote, ​“The evi­dence used to con­vict Julius was incon­sis­tent and sev­er­al eye­wit­ness­es pro­vid­ed an ali­bi for Julius. The jury that sen­tenced Julius to death only includ­ed one black man and at least one juror har­bored racial prej­u­dice that influ­enced his vote to con­vict and sen­tence Julius to death. The death penal­ty is the only sen­tence that we cannot undo.”

Kirk Bloodsworth, Executive Director of Witness to Innocence, an orga­ni­za­tion of death-row exonerees, wrote in his let­ter of sup­port, ​“I can­not say whether Julius Jones is inno­cent or guilty, but it is glar­ing that his case is fraught with the exact prob­lems most typ­i­cal­ly asso­ci­at­ed with wrong­ful con­vic­tions, and present in the major­i­ty of the case of peo­ple who, like me, were near­ly killed for crimes we did not com­mit. Clemency at this stage is the only way to ensure that an inno­cent man is not executed.” 

Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform empha­sized the con­text in which Jones was tried. “[T]his case is haunt­ed by the 21-year reign of the Oklahoma County District Attorney who sent 54 men and women to Oklahoma’s death row,” the orga­ni­za­tion wrote. ​“Over half of those con­vic­tions have been reversed, and sev­er­al defen­dants exon­er­at­ed and released from prison, as the result of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct (in 33% of the cas­es), false tes­ti­mo­ny by state foren­sic sci­en­tists, and false infor­mant tes­ti­mo­ny, among oth­er vio­la­tions. Julius Jones’ case has nev­er been new­ly con­sid­ered under the infor­ma­tion we now have regard­ing crim­i­nal jus­tice in Oklahoma County dur­ing that time.”

Oklahoma has not con­duct­ed an exe­cu­tion since 2015, when it was revealed that the state had used the wrong drug in the exe­cu­tion of Charles Warner. It has car­ried out more exe­cu­tions since 1976 than any oth­er state except Texas and Virginia.