7/28/2023 0 Comments Julius jones clemency hearing![]() Jones’ case has drawn national attention in recent years, including from celebrities like Kim Kardashian West, and more than 6.4 million people have signed a petition in support of Jones, much to the frustration of Howell’s family. “The narrative Jones and his defense team have fed the media is absolutely false,” a spokesperson for the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said during the hearing. Jones appeared to advance those claims on Monday, insisting that while he had a history of larceny, he had “never accosted people” and that his lead attorney, David McKenzie, “rested my case without consulting me at all.”Īhead of Monday’s hearing, the state had stood by its prosecution of Jones, citing DNA evidence, multiple eyewitnesses, and an existing criminal record as supporting the case that Jones had murdered Howell. Jones insisted on Monday that he had been discouraged from offering testimony over concerns that he might appear too emotional before a jury decided his fate during his 2002 trial.Īfter the board recommended during a September hearing that Jones’ sentence be commuted, Stitt scheduled a clemency hearing for a “more intensive and thorough” review that would allow Jones and Howell’s family to speak.Ī petition for Jones’ clemency states that Jones shouldn’t be executed due to “fundamental breakdowns in the system tasked with deciding” his guilt based on a “fundamentally flawed and incomplete record.” The petition cited “inexperienced, overworked, and under-resourced public defense counsel” who failed to put the prosecution’s case to the test, in addition to alleged prosecutorial misconduct. “Yes, I’ve made many mistakes in my youth, but I did not kill Mr. “I am here before you today to tell what I never got to tell the jury during my trial,” Jones said during roughly 17 minutes of testimony on Monday. Jones, who was 19 when he was arrested for Howell’s murder, has spent half his life in prison and told the board on Monday that he was neither involved in the planning of the robbery that led to Howell’s death nor had he been present at the time of the shooting in Howell’s driveway. Jones has insisted he was set up by Howell’s killer, a friend who testified against him at trial, and claimed the murder weapon that was found wrapped in a bandana in his parents’ house was planted there. 18 execution in connection with the murder of 45-year-old Paul Howell during a carjacking plot in 1999. In an emotional statement after the hearing, Jones’ sister, Antoinette Jones, thanked the parole board for “seeing that there was a grave mistake and that it should be fixed,” while urging Stitt to “take all evidence consideration,” and adopt the parole board’s recommendation for her brother.Īfter 22 years on death row, Jones, now 41, is just weeks away from his scheduled Nov. The final decision about whether to grant Jones clemency or commute his sentence is now in the hands of Oklahoma Gov. Board member Richard Smothermon, who was appointed to the Pardon and Parole Board by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma in July, voted against it. She was joined by board members Adam Luck and Larry Morris who voted in favor of clemency and commuting Julius Jones’ death sentence to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. “I continue to believe that there is doubt in this case in which the ultimate punishment should not be utilized,” board member Kelly Doyle said, rendering her vote in the 3-1 decision. Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board voted on Monday to recommend clemency and commute the sentence of a Black man who has been on death row for nearly two decades and always maintained his innocence.
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