Current:Home > ScamsOklahoma parole board recommends governor spare the life of man on death row-InfoLens
Oklahoma parole board recommends governor spare the life of man on death row
View Date:2024-12-23 19:59:38
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 on Wednesday to recommend the governor spare the life of a man on death row for his role in the 1992 shooting death of a convenience store owner during a robbery.
The board’s narrow decision means the fate of Emmanuel Littlejohn, 52, now rests with Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who could commute his sentence to life in prison without parole. Stitt has granted clemency only once, in 2021, to death row inmate Julius Jones, commuting his sentence to life without parole just hours before Jones was scheduled to receive a lethal injection. Stitt has denied clemency recommendations from the board in three other cases: Bigler Stouffer, James Coddington and Phillip Hancock, all of whom were executed.
“I’m not giving up,” Littlejohn’s sister, Augustina Sanders, said after the board’s vote. “Just spare my brother’s life. He’s not the person they made him out to be.”
Stitt’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the board’s decision, but Stitt has previously said he and his staff meet with attorneys for both sides, as well as family members of the victim, before deciding a case in which clemency has been recommended.
Littlejohn was sentenced to death by two separate Oklahoma County juries for his role in the shooting death of 31-year-old Kenneth Meers, who was co-owner of the Root-N-Scoot convenience store in southeast Oklahoma City.
Prosecutors said Littlejohn and a co-defendant, Glenn Bethany, robbed the store to get money to pay a drug debt and that Littlejohn, who had a lengthy criminal history and had just been released from prison, shot Meers after he emerged from the back of the store carrying a broom.
Assistant Attorney General Tessa Henry said two teenagers who were working with Meers in the store both described Littlejohn as the shooter.
“Both boys were unequivocal that Littlejohn was the one with the gun and that Bethany didn’t have a gun,” she told the panel.
Bethany was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Littlejohn, who testified before the panel via a video feed from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, apologized to Meers’ family and acknowledged his role in the robbery, but denied firing the fatal shot.
“I’ve admitted to my part,” Littlejohn said. “I committed a robbery that had devastating consequences, but I didn’t kill Mr. Meers.
“Neither Oklahoma nor the Meers family will be better if you decide to kill me.”
Littlejohn’s attorneys argued that killings resulting from a robbery are rarely considered death penalty cases in Oklahoma and that prosecutors today would not have pursued the ultimate punishment.
Attorney Caitlin Hoeberlein said robbery murders make up less than 2% of Oklahoma death sentences and that the punishment hasn’t been handed down in a case with similar facts 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.
Littlejohn was prosecuted by former Oklahoma County District Attorney Bob Macy, who was known for his zealous pursuit of the death penalty and secured 54 death sentences during more than 20 years in office.
Assistant Federal Public Defender Callie Heller said it was problematic that prosecutors argued in both Bethany’s and Littlejohn’s murder cases that each was the shooter. She added that some jurors were concerned whether a life-without-parole sentence meant the defendant would never be released.
“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?” she asked.
veryGood! (32)
Related
- 'Gladiator 2' review: Yes, we are entertained again by outrageous sequel
- 2024 Winter Classic winners and losers: Joey Daccord makes history, Vegas slide continues
- Pakistan arrests 21 members of outlawed Pakistani Taliban militant group linked to deadly attacks
- A prisoner set a fire inside an Atlanta jail but no one was injured, officials say
- Why the US celebrates Veterans Day and how the holiday has changed over time
- Happy Holidays with Geena Davis, Weird Al, and Jacob Knowles!
- Last-of-its-kind College Football Playoff arrives with murky future on horizon
- California 10-year-old used father's stolen gun to fatally shoot boy, authorities say
- Kentucky governor says investigators will determine what caused deadly Louisville factory explosion
- Horoscopes Today, December 31, 2023
Ranking
- Tennessee suspect in dozens of rapes is convicted of producing images of child sex abuse
- Missing Chinese exchange student found safe in Utah following cyber kidnapping scheme, police say
- States and Congress wrestle with cybersecurity at water utilities amid renewed federal warnings
- Ross Gay on inciting joy while dining with sorrow
- Man who stole and laundered roughly $1B in bitcoin is sentenced to 5 years in prison
- 2024 Winter Classic winners and losers: Joey Daccord makes history, Vegas slide continues
- Driver fleeing police strikes 8 people near Times Square on New Year's Day, police say
- NJ mayor says buses of migrants bound for NY are being dropped off at NJ train stations
Recommendation
-
'The Penguin' spoilers! Colin Farrell spills on that 'dark' finale episode
-
States and Congress wrestle with cybersecurity at water utilities amid renewed federal warnings
-
Basdeo Panday, Trinidad and Tobago’s first prime minister of Indian descent, dies
-
16-year-old boy fatally stabbed on a hill overlooking London during New Year’s Eve
-
Harriet Tubman posthumously named a general in Veterans Day ceremony
-
Natalia Grace Docuseries: Why the Ukrainian Orphan Is Calling Her Adoptive Mom a Monster
-
Queen Margrethe II shocks Denmark, reveals she's abdicating after 52 years on throne
-
Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean and Wife Rochelle Officially Break Up After 12 Years of Marriage