Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board Again Recommends Commuting Julius Jones’ Death Sentence

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board has for a sec­ond time rec­om­mend­ed that Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt grant clemen­cy to death-row pris­on­er Julius Jones (pic­tured dur­ing the clemency hearing). 

Following a hear­ing on November 1, 2021, the board, cit­ing doubts about Jones’ guilt, vot­ed 3 – 1 to ask Stitt to com­mute his death sen­tence to life impris­on­ment with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Jones, who is Black, is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed November 18 on charges that he mur­dered Paul Howell, a white busi­ness­man, in 1999. His case has gar­nered world­wide atten­tion amidst evi­dence of racial bias, incom­pe­tent rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and possible innocence.

Testifying by video con­fer­ence, Jones told the board: ​“First, I feel for the Howell fam­i­ly, for the trag­ic loss of Mr. Paul Howell, who I’ve heard was a car­ing and all-around good per­son. … Second, I am not the per­son respon­si­ble for tak­ing Mr. Howell’s life. … Truth is,” Jones said, ​“I did­n’t shoot that man. I did­n’t kill Mr. Paul Howell. I was­n’t involved in it in any way.” 

Board mem­bers Adam Luck, Larry Morris, and Kelly Doyle vot­ed in favor of rec­om­mend­ing com­mu­ta­tion, while Richard Smothermon vot­ed against clemen­cy. Board mem­ber Scott Williams recused him­self from the deci­sion to avoid any appear­ance of con­flict aris­ing out of a pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ship with one of Jones’ lawyers in an unrelated matter.

The governor’s office issued a short state­ment say­ing that ​“Governor Stitt is aware of the Pardon and Parole Board’s vote.” The state­ment did not address the sub­stance of the board’s rec­om­men­da­tion, adding only ​“Our office will not offer fur­ther com­ment until the gov­er­nor has made a final decision.”

Attempts to Undermine the Clemency Process

Oklahoma offi­cials have come under fire for what crit­ics have called attempts to manip­u­late the clemen­cy process and intim­i­date parole board mem­bers. In June 2020, accord­ing to news reports by The Frontier, board mem­ber Allen McCall threat­ened to pur­sue crim­i­nal charges against the board’s exec­u­tive direc­tor, Steven Bickley, unless Bickley took steps to pre­vent Jones from obtain­ing a com­mu­ta­tion hear­ing before he was the sub­ject of a death war­rant. In response, Bickley sought an offi­cial opin­ion from then-Attorney General Mike Hunter on whether such hear­ings could be sched­uled. Hunter approved the pre-war­rant hear­ings, but Bickley took a leave of absence and ulti­mate­ly resigned, say­ing he had been ​“threat­ened for doing his job.” 

After the board sched­uled Jones’ com­mu­ta­tion hear­ing, Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater filed an emer­gency motion in the Oklahoma Supreme Court seek­ing to recuse Luck and Doyle from par­tic­i­pat­ing. Prater claimed in his suit that the board mem­bers would be biased in favor of com­mu­ta­tion because of pro­fes­sion­al ties to orga­ni­za­tions that seek to reduce incar­cer­a­tion rates. The court denied the motion on September 10, 2021, three days ahead of the sched­uled hear­ing, writ­ing that Prater was ​“ask­ing this Court to pro­vide for a rem­e­dy that sim­ply does not exist under Oklahoma law.” 

After the September 13 hear­ing, the board vot­ed 3 – 1, in the same align­ment as in the clemen­cy hear­ing, to rec­om­mend that Gov. Stitt com­mute Jones’ sen­tence to a parole-eli­gi­ble life sentence. 

One week after the com­mu­ta­tion rec­om­men­da­tion, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals sched­uled Jones’ exe­cu­tion. Gov. Stitt took no action on the com­mu­ta­tion rec­om­men­da­tion, say­ing he would wait for the results of the clemency hearing. 

Prior to the clemen­cy hear­ing, Attorney General John O’Connor — who replaced Hunter after he resigned for per­son­al rea­sons — also tried to remove Luck and Doyle from the case. O’Connor’s rea­sons for recus­ing the pair was indis­tin­guish­able from those pre­vi­ous­ly advanced by Prater and already reject­ed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The court denied O’Connor’s motion.

The Black Wall Street Times accused the pros­e­cu­tors of inter­fer­ing in the clemen­cy process and seek­ing ​“to silence and remove” Luck and Doyle from the case. The Times not­ed ​“while DA Prater con­sid­ers their par­tic­i­pa­tion a con­flict of inter­est, he said noth­ing about Board mem­ber Richard Smothermon,” a 16-year Oklahoma District Attorney ​“who has for­mer ties to DA Prater [and] … has col­lab­o­rat­ed with DA Prater in the past as mem­bers of the Oklahoma District Attorneys Council.” 

Jones’ Clemency Hearing

Jones’ lawyers argued dur­ing the clemen­cy hear­ing that he is inno­cent, that his co-defen­dant, Christopher Jordan fits the eye­wit­ness descrip­tion of the mur­der, that his lawyers failed to present ali­bi evi­dence that he was home with his fam­i­ly at the time of the mur­der, and that his case was taint­ed by racism and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. Police, Jones’ coun­sel said, taunt­ed him at the time of arrest, say­ing ​“Run n***r. I dare you, run.” Jones also pre­sent­ed a sworn state­ment from a mem­ber of his jury that anoth­er juror had referred to Jones with that same racial slur and then said that they should ​“shoot [Jones], and take him and bury him under­neath the jail.” 

Defense coun­sel also argued that pros­e­cu­tors with­held crit­i­cal evi­dence from the defense and the jury about the lenient deal they offered to Jordan in exchange for his tes­ti­mo­ny against Jones. Under that deal, Jordan was released from prison after serv­ing a 15-year sen­tence. Jones also pre­sent­ed the board with evi­dence the jury had nev­er heard that Jordan had con­fessed to killing Howell and said that some­one else was on death row for the killing. 

Jones also pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from Connie Ellison, Paul Howell’s girl­friend at the time he was killed. Ellison told the Board that, while she is ​“still tor­ment­ed” by Howell’s mur­der, ​“I’m here to ask for mer­cy. There are too many ques­tions and too much doubt about Julius’ guilt to allow the state of Oklahoma to exe­cute him in just over two weeks,” she said. ​“I feel that I wouldn’t want that and nei­ther would Paul Howell.”

Howell’s fam­i­ly accused Jones’ sup­port­ers of run­ning a dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign and said they had no doubt that he had killed Paul Howell. They said that they saw Jones com­mit the killing and that his DNA (along with that of oth­er uniden­ti­fied DNA con­trib­u­tors) was found on a red ban­dana the killer was said to be wear­ing at the time of the murder. 

Board mem­ber Smothermon said that to believe Jones’ inno­cence claim, ​“you have to dis­be­lieve every oth­er piece of evi­dence in the case,” includ­ing the wit­ness­es and physical evidence. 

Jones’ case gath­ered wide­spread atten­tion after an ABC doc­u­men­tary series, with mil­lions sign­ing an online peti­tion ask­ing Stitt to pre­vent his exe­cu­tion. He is part of an ongo­ing law­suit, chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Oklahoma’s lethal injec­tion meth­ods. However, the U.S. Supreme Court on October 28, 2021 vacat­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion that would have halt­ed his exe­cu­tion pend­ing the out­come of a fed­er­al tri­al on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s exe­cu­tion process. That tri­al is sched­uled to begin in February 2022. The Supreme Court order also vacat­ed a stay for Oklahoma death-row pris­on­er John Grant, who was exe­cut­ed on October 28. According to media eye­wit­ness­es, Grant suf­fered more than two dozen full-body con­vul­sions and vom­it­ed sev­er­al times over a 15-minute peri­od dur­ing the exe­cu­tion before he was declared uncon­scious, inject­ed with the sec­ond and third drugs in the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, and died.