At 4 pm today, Julius Jones will be executed unless Governor Kevin Stitt commutes his sentence. Jones insists he is innocent. The state parole board voted 3-1 to commute his sentence to life in prison.
Our friend John Thompson, historian and former teacher, was Jones’ teacher. He strongly believes he is innocent.
Whether guilty or innocent, Jones’ faces either death or life in prison.
Governor Stitt will decide whether he is pro-life or pro-death.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Three people have come forward to say that another person named Christopher Jordan confessed to the murder. Jordan had dinner at Julius Jones’s house the night of the crime and so had opportunity to plant the bandana and weapon. A witness to the crime reported that the murderer’s hair was sticking out of his bandana. Jones had a shaved head at the time.
The evidence simply is not sufficient for the state to take his life, and at any rate, given the frequency with which people are falsely convicted of murder, the death penalty should be illegal. The United Nations has made abolition of the death penalty a principle of basic human rights. The US is an international scofflaw with regard to its continuation of this state barbarism.
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Worse…
“Despite having signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child on February 16, 1995, the United States remains unbound by it to this day.
“If the United States has not ratified the Convention, this would be due to the fact that certain individual states wish to be able to execute minors. Until 2005, the Supreme Court of the United States held that it was constitutional for state governments to execute children.”
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Oops. I was wrong about the incorporation of abolition of the death penalty into basic international law. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 6, bans it for pregnant women and persons under the age of 18 and encourages nations to work toward its abolition.
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Thank you for posting this. The last three days at the Apitol have my head spinning. He’s another balanced account.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/11/17/julius-jones-execution-stitt/
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The justice system in this country has a lot of problems and this is an example of that brutal injustice.
“156 individuals have been exonerated from death row–that is, found to be innocent and released – since 1973. In other words, for every 10 people who have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S., one person has been set free.”
https://www.ncadp.org/pages/innocence
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“The taking of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict it on another, even when backed by legal process.”
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
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Quote: On December 17, 2007, Governor Jon Corzine [Democrat] signed a bill that abolishes the death penalty in New Jersey and replaces it with a sentence of life without parole. On Sunday, December 16th, Corzine commuted the sentences of the eight men on death row to life without the parole sentences. (“NJ Bans Death Penalty” Associated Press, December 17, 2007). The New Jersey Assembly approved this bill to replace the state’s death penalty with a sentence of life without parole by a vote of 44-36 on December 13. The Senate approved the same legislation by a vote 21-16 on December 10. This is the first legislative abolition of the death penalty since it was reinstated in 1976. Iowa and West Virginia in 1965 were the last states to vote out capital punishment. end quote
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Wow. Great news. Thanks for sharing this, Mr. J!
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He just granted clemency.
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Yes.
From NBC News: Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Thursday commuted the death sentence of Julius Jones to life in prison without the possibility of parole amid protests and a last-minute court appeal that argued the state’s execution process amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Stitt’s announcement came after Jones’ supporters staged days of protests in advance of his scheduled execution, which was to take place at 5 p.m. ET Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Jones, 41, has maintained his innocence for more than two decades in the 1999 slaying of Paul Howell, a businessman in the affluent Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond. [snip]
Jones maintains he was framed by the actual killer, a high school friend and co-defendant who testified against him and was released from prison after 15 years.
State and county prosecutors have said the evidence against Jones is overwhelming. Trial transcripts show witnesses identified Jones as the shooter and placed him with Howell’s stolen vehicle. Investigators also found the murder weapon wrapped in a bandana with Jones’ DNA in an attic space above his bedroom. Jones claims the murder weapon was placed there by the actual killer, who visited Jones’ house after Howell was shot. end quote
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