Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board Recommends Clemency for Julius Jones

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board has vot­ed to rec­om­mend that Governor Kevin Stitt com­mute the death sen­tence imposed on Julius Jones (pic­tured) by an Oklahoma County jury in 1999 to a sen­tence of life in prison with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.

After a three-hour hear­ing on September 13, 2021 that fea­tured tes­ti­mo­ny from pros­e­cu­tors, defense attor­neys, and fam­i­ly mem­bers of mur­der vic­tim Paul Howell, the board vot­ed 3 – 1 in favor of com­mu­ta­tion, with one mem­ber, Scott Williams, recus­ing him­self to avoid any appear­ance of a con­flict aris­ing out of a pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ship with one of Jones’ lawyers in an unre­lat­ed mat­ter. The Board’s rec­om­men­da­tion for com­mu­ta­tion now goes to Governor Kevin Stitt for a final decision. 

In announc­ing his vote, Board Chairman Adam Luck, who was appoint­ed by Governor Stitt, said, ​“I believe in death penal­ty cas­es there should be no doubts. And put sim­ply, I have doubts about this case.” Board mem­ber Kelly Doyle said that recent devel­op­ments in brain sci­ence per­suad­ed her that the death penal­ty was exces­sive because Jones was only 19 at the time of the mur­der, adding that she also har­bored doubts about Jones’ guilt. 

“I just don’t have the words to say,” Madeline Davis-Jones, moth­er of Julius Jones, said after the board vot­ed. ​“I don’t know how I was feel­ing. I was just in a good place.” Reverend Cece Jones-Davis, who has spear­head­ed advo­ca­cy around Jones’ case and is the Campaign Director of the Justice for Julius Campaign, issued a state­ment to the Religion News Service say­ing ​“Today, God won.” Jones-Davis praised the board mem­bers for their votes. ​“They saw the mer­its of the case as they are, were moved by com­pas­sion, and did the right thing. I am beyond grate­ful to them,” she said.

In a state­ment issued after the hear­ing, Governor Stitt’s office said: ​“The gov­er­nor takes his role in this process seri­ous­ly and will care­ful­ly con­sid­er the Pardon and Parole Board’s rec­om­men­da­tion as he does in all cas­es. We will not have any fur­ther com­ment until the gov­er­nor has made a decision.”

Jones’ case has made nation­al head­lines and inspired a move­ment of sup­port­ers urg­ing his release. Jones-Davis told sup­port­ers before the clemen­cy hear­ing that “[t]here are times when we will pray. But some­times we have to get up. Sometimes we have to fight. This fight is sacred. This fight is worth fighting for.”

Whether Jones would receive a hear­ing at all and who would judge his appli­ca­tion for clemen­cy remained in doubt until short­ly before the hear­ing itself. After the board set the hear­ing date, Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to issue a death war­rant set­ting Jones’ exe­cu­tion for October 28. Anticipating a death war­rant would issue, the board ten­ta­tive­ly sched­uled a clemen­cy hear­ing on October 5 to replace the com­mu­ta­tion hear­ing. When the court did not set an exe­cu­tion date, the board pre­pared to con­duct the September 13 hear­ing. Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater then filed an emer­gency motion with the Oklahoma Supreme Court to recuse Luck and Doyle from par­tic­i­pat­ing in Jones’ hear­ing, alleg­ing that they would be biased in favor of com­mu­ta­tion because of their ties to orga­ni­za­tions that seek to reduce incar­cer­a­tion rates. The court denied the motion on September 10, writ­ing that Prater was ​“ask­ing this Court to pro­vide for a rem­e­dy that sim­ply does not exist under Oklahoma law.” 

Prater’s request was the lat­est in a string of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al efforts crit­i­cized as attempts to deny Jones mean­ing­ful review in the clemen­cy process. In June 2020, the board asked then-Attorney General Mike Hunter if it was allowed to hold a com­mu­ta­tion hear­ing for a death-row pris­on­er. An inves­ti­ga­tion by The Frontier found that for­mer judge Allen McCall had threat­ened the board’s exec­u­tive direc­tor, Steven Bickley, with a grand jury inves­ti­ga­tion if he sched­uled a hear­ing a for Jones with­out first seek­ing Hunter’s approval. Bickley sub­se­quent­ly resigned, say­ing he had been ​“threat­ened for doing his job.” Prater had also unsuc­cess­ful­ly sought to remove Luck from an ear­li­er stage of Jones’ hearing process. 

Recounting numer­ous prob­lems with the prosecution’s case, Connie Ellison, Howell’s girl­friend at the time he was killed, wrote in an op-ed in The Black Wall Street Times that she ​“question[ed] if the wrong per­son has been sit­ting on death row all these years. I know, with­out doubt, “ she said, ​“that Paul would not want an inno­cent man to be exe­cut­ed for his mur­der.” Howell’s sis­ter Megan — who pro­vid­ed a descrip­tion of the killer that Jones’ sup­port­ers say actu­al­ly fits his co-defen­dant, Chris Jordan — asked the board to deny Jones’ peti­tion. ​“The guilt of Julius Jones is so over­whelm­ing we would ask the Board to see that truth, hear that truth and offer no relief to Julius Jones through these com­mu­ta­tion hear­ings,” she said.

At the hear­ing, Jones’ lawyer Amanda Bass expressed sym­pa­thy ​“for the unfath­omable suf­fer­ing” expe­ri­enced by the Howell fam­i­ly. ​“We are trou­bled by what hap­pened that day,” she said. ​“We desire only jus­tice.” However, she added, ​“jus­tice will not be achieved by exe­cut­ing an inno­cent man. … The ques­tion this hon­or­able Board must answer is what does jus­tice look like?”

Bass pre­sent­ed the board with evi­dence that, while he was in prison, Jordan had con­fessed to Roderick Wesley that he had killed a man and that some­one was doing time on death row for his crime. Jones’ pros­e­cu­tors asked the Board to dis­re­gard Wesley’s tes­ti­mo­ny because of his crim­i­nal record. Noting the irony, Bass point­ed out that while the pros­e­cu­tion assert­ed that defense wit­ness­es with felony con­vic­tions are not believ­able, it ​“at the same time has asked you to cred­it the tes­ti­mo­ny of its cen­tral wit­ness­es, all of whom were con­vict­ed felons and informants themselves.”