Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board Recommends Clemency for Prisoner Scheduled for September Execution

On August 7, 2024, Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board vot­ed 3 – 2 to rec­om­mend clemen­cy for 52-year-old Emmanuel Littlejohn, who is cur­rent­ly sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on September 26. The final deci­sion to grant clemen­cy, reduc­ing Mr. Littlejohn’s death sen­tence to life with­out parole, rests with Governor Kevin Stitt, who has only grant­ed clemen­cy once dur­ing his tenure. 

“I’ve admit­ted to my part,” said Mr. Littlejohn dur­ing his clemen­cy hear­ing. ​“I com­mit­ted a rob­bery that had dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences, but I didn’t kill Mr. [Kenneth] Meers.” The clemen­cy peti­tion high­lights sev­er­al ways in which Mr. Littlejohn’s death sen­tence is the ​“oppo­site of reli­able,” incon­sis­tent with stan­dards set forth by the Supreme Court. Despite Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of Mr. Littlejohn as a ​“vio­lent and manip­u­la­tive crim­i­nal who refus­es to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for his actions,” the clemen­cy peti­tion points to prison records, which demon­strate that Mr. Littlejohn has been non-vio­lent for more than 20 years. The peti­tion argues that ​“he pos­es no threat to the prison com­mu­ni­ty,” cit­ing good behav­ior, fam­i­ly ties, and ​“debil­i­tat­ing health issues” from a ​“recent stroke and diag­no­sis of pro­gres­sive white mat­ter dis­ease.” The peti­tion con­cludes: ​“Given the chance to live out his remain­ing years in prison, Manuel will con­tin­ue to pro­vide famil­ial sup­port, mod­el good behav­ior, and live with remorse.” 

Mr. Littlejohn, whose child­hood was marked by ​“fre­quent expo­sure to vio­lence and drugs,” accord­ing to the clemen­cy peti­tion, was 20 years old with a brain ​“less devel­oped than the typ­i­cal 20-year-old’s” at the time of the inci­dent. Death sen­tences for rob­bery-mur­der are rare in the state, with Attorney Caitlin Hoeberlein explain­ing dur­ing the hear­ing that they com­prise less than 2% of Oklahoma death sen­tences, and a death sen­tence in a case with sim­i­lar facts hasn’t been hand­ed down in more than 15 years. ​“It is evi­dent that Emmanuel would not have been sen­tenced to death if he’d been tried in 2024 or even 2004,” she said. 

Both Mr. Littlejohn, and co-defen­dant Glenn Bethany, age 26 at the time, were con­vict­ed for the death of 31-year-old con­ve­nience store co-own­er Mr. Meers, who died from a sin­gle gun­shot wound, dur­ing their rob­bery of the store. Despite pros­e­cu­tors first argu­ing in 1993 that Mr. Bethany was the shoot­er respon­si­ble, result­ing in a sen­tence of life with­out parole, they then argued the oppo­site in the 1994 tri­al of Mr. Littlejohn, impli­cat­ing him as the shoot­er rather than an accom­plice in the rob­bery. The jury, which was unaware of the sen­tence hand­ed down pre­vi­ous­ly in Mr. Bethany’s case, sen­tenced Mr. Littlejohn to death, which was lat­er over­turned on appeal. ​“Is it jus­tice for a man to be exe­cut­ed for an act that pros­e­cu­tors argued anoth­er man com­mit­ted when the evi­dence of guilt is incon­clu­sive?” argued Assistant Federal Public Defender Callie Heller dur­ing the clemency hearing. 

Jurors involved in both Mr. Littlejohn’s 1994 sen­tenc­ing tri­al and 2000 resen­tenc­ing tri­al expressed con­fu­sion about the instruc­tions they were pro­vid­ed, which includ­ed the rel­a­tive­ly new sen­tence of ​“life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.” In fact, dur­ing the 2000 sen­tenc­ing tri­al, the jury asked for clar­i­fi­ca­tion on whether the sen­tence of life with­out parole could lat­er be reduced with­out anoth­er jury ver­dict, allow­ing for the defen­dant to be released on parole — the judge did not answer, instead refer­ring them to their orig­i­nal instruc­tions. Since, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has acknowl­edged the con­fu­sion and have revised instructions. 

Following the board’s deci­sion, AG Drummond expressed his dis­ap­point­ment and reaf­firmed his com­mit­ment to Mr. Littlejohn’s death sen­tence in a state­ment. ​“I remain stead­fast that the fam­i­ly of Kenny Meers has wait­ed far too long for jus­tice to be done,” he said. ​“My office intends to make our case to the gov­er­nor why there should not be clemen­cy grant­ed to this vio­lent and manipulative killer.”