Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Parole Recommends Clemency for James Coddington

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board has rec­om­mend­ed clemen­cy for James Coddington (pic­tured at his clemen­cy hear­ing), the first of 25 death-row pris­on­ers sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Oklahoma between August 2022 and December 2024.

In a 3 – 2 vote on August 3, 2022, the Board rec­om­mend­ed that Coddington’s death sen­tence be reduced to life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Gubernatorial appointee Ed Konieczny, Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals appointee Larry Morris, and Oklahoma Supreme Court appointee Richard Smothermon vot­ed yes. Gubernatorial appointees Scott Williams and Cathy Stockler voted no. 

Coddington was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the addic­tion-dri­ven mur­der of his friend, Albert Hale. In an emo­tion­al five-minute pre­sen­ta­tion to the board, Coddington said ​“I can’t apol­o­gize enough for what I did.” 

Hale, Coddington said, ​“was one of my friends, and he tried his best to help me, … and for that, he lost his life.” Coddington said he is no longer the per­son who killed Hale. ​“I’m clean, I know God, I’m not … I’m not a vicious mur­der­er.” Accepting respon­si­bil­i­ty for his action, he said, ​“If this ends with my death, I can’t say it’s wrong.”

Hale’s fam­i­ly oppos­es the grant of clemen­cy. His son Mitch told the board, ​“I am here to say that I for­give James Coddington, but my for­give­ness does not release him from the con­se­quences of his actions.”

The rec­om­men­da­tion now goes to Governor Kevin Stitt, who can accept, reject, or mod­i­fy the Board’s recommendation.

In addi­tion to his per­son­al state­ment at the hear­ing, Coddington’s lawyers pre­sent­ed evi­dence of his good con­duct in prison and the work he has done to redeem him­self dur­ing his near­ly two decades on death row. The peti­tion gar­nered sup­port from prison staff, notably for­mer Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Justin Jones.

Coddington’s clemen­cy coun­sel also pre­sent­ed evi­dence of his dimin­ished cul­pa­bil­i­ty for his crime. The lawyers argued that Coddington killed Hale in the midst of a drug binge that put him in a men­tal state that made it impos­si­ble for him to form the req­ui­site intent for first degree mur­der. However, his coun­sel said, the jury nev­er heard crit­i­cal evi­dence regard­ing his men­tal state because the tri­al court exclud­ed expert eval­u­a­tions explain­ing Coddington’s drug-induced psy­chosis. On appeal, courts agreed that the exclu­sion of this evi­dence was con­sti­tu­tion­al error, but the fed­er­al courts deferred to state court rul­ings that the vio­la­tion was ulti­mate­ly ​“harm­less.”

Coddington also pre­sent­ed exten­sive evi­dence of his trau­mat­ic and abu­sive child­hood. Coddington’s moth­er was impris­oned when he was a tod­dler, leav­ing Coddington to be raised by an alco­holic and drug-addict­ed father who put alco­hol in his baby bot­tles. Coddington began abus­ing drugs as a child and bat­tled his addic­tion for years until he was con­vict­ed of Hale’s mur­der at the age of 24.

In a press release, Coddington’s attor­ney, Federal Public Defender Emma Rolls, said: ​“By vot­ing to com­mute James Coddington’s death sen­tence, the Board has acknowl­edged that his case exem­pli­fies the cir­cum­stances for which clemency exists.”

The clemen­cy request is now sent to Governor Kevin Stitt. In a state­ment released by the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty released, Reverend Don Heath, Chair of the Coalition said that ​“James’ life is now in Governor Stitts’ hands.” ​“We ask Gov. Stitt to read the clemen­cy pack­et, to watch the clemen­cy hear­ing today and to look to his own faith to decide when mer­cy and for­give­ness is appro­pri­ate and we hope that he will allow James Coddington to spend the rest of his nat­ur­al life behind bars,” Rev. Heath added.

In a Twitter thread, Adam Luck, the for­mer Chair of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, said he hoped that the Board’s rec­om­men­da­tion in Coddington’s case is not a ​“mean­ing­less step on the inevitable path to death.” Governor Stitt pres­sured Luck to resign from the Board in January 2022 because of Luck’s votes in favor of clemen­cy for death-row prisoners.

Luck tweet­ed that the clemen­cy process is the last step in ensur­ing fair­ness, so “[w]e should treat this result as sacred.” ​“If we ignore this rec­om­men­da­tion, we acknowl­edge the appear­ance of fair­ness and due process the clemen­cy hear­ings pro­vide make us feel bet­ter but do noth­ing to sway us from what we want: vengeance death, and what we call jus­tice,” he added.

Stitt appoint­ed Konieczny, a for­mer police offi­cer and Episcopal bish­op, to the Board in January 2022 as Luck’s replacement.

Coddington is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on August 25, 2022, the first of a more than two-year, near­ly one-per-month exe­cu­tion sched­ule. If the exe­cu­tions are all car­ried out, 58% of all death-row pris­on­ers in the state would be put to death.