OKLAHOMA CITY – Students in high schools across Oklahoma City dropped out of their classes. Vigils were held in the state c -itol and barricades were erected in front of the governor’s mansion. Even Baker Mayfield, quarterback for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, incriminated Oklahoma’s highest-profile execution in decades.
Baker Mayfield becomes emotional about the impending execution of Julius Jones
Julius Jones, 41, who has pleaded innocence for more than two decades, reportedly received a fatal injection Thursday in McAlester State Prison for murdering Paul Howell, a businessman in the affluent Edmond suburb of Oklahoma City, in 1999.
Mayfield, a University of Oklahoma Heisman Trophy winner, is among several high-profile athletes and entertainers who interfered in Jones’ case and urged Republican Governor Kevin Stitt to commute his sentence and save his life.
“Yeah, it’s pretty tough, to be honest,” Mayfield said on Wednesday, pausing and his eyes filling with tears. “It’s not easy to talk about. I’ve been trying to get the facts down and tell the truth for a while.
“It’s a shame it got this far, 24 hours away.”
Stitt was silent about the case, but met with Jones’ attorneys and Howell’s family.
Jones’ mother Madeline Davis-Jones, who tried unsuccessfully to meet with Stitt on Monday, spoke to a group of around 300 people, including many students from nearby high schools, who were gathering outside Stitt’s C -itol office on Wednesday, chanting and sang songs.
“I don’t want to go to a lynching morning tomorrow,” Davis-Jones said, her voice rising with emotion. “Why should I want to see someone hanging? We should be done with that. Do you want your baby or child to be hanged? “
Jones claims he was set up by the actual killer, a high school friend and co-defendant who testified against him and was released from prison after 15 years.
Prosecutors and district attorneys said the evidence against Jones was overwhelming. Trial records show that witnesses identified Jones as the shooter and placed him with Howell’s stolen vehicle. Investigators also found the murder we -on, wr -ped in a scarf with Jones’ DNA on it, in an attic above his bedroom. Jones claims the murder we -on was placed there by the actual killer, who visited Jones’ house after Howell was shot.
The state’s Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-1 twice in favor of recommending Stitt to grant Jones a pardon and commute his sentence to life imprisonment.
Stitt spokesman Charlie Hannema said: “The governor takes his role in this process seriously and, as in all cases, is carefully considering the recommendation of the Pardon and Parole Board.”
Paul Howell’s sister Megan Tobey testified before the committee that she clearly remembers how Jones shot her brother in front of his two young daughters.
“He’s the same person today as he was 22 years ago. He’s still getting into trouble. He’s still in a corridor. He’s still lying. And he still feels no shame, guilt, or remorse for his actions, ”said Tobey. “We need Julius Jones to be held responsible for it.”
In a separate vote on Wednesday, the same board voted 3-2 in favor of pardoning another death row inmate, Bigler Stouffer, citing concerns about the state’s lethal injection protocols. Stouffer is due to die on December 9th.
Jones’ case was featured in “The Last Defense,” a three-part documentary produced by actress Viola Davis and broadcast on ABC in 2018. Since then, Kim Kardashian West and athletes with Oklahoma ties including Mayfield and NBA stars Russell Westbrook, Blake Griffin and Trae Young have called on Stitt to commute Jones’s death sentence.
Other celebrities and public figures tweeted about the case:
Oklahoma ended a six-year moratorium on executions last month – triggered by concerns about its lethal injection methods. John Marion Grant, 60, convulsed and vomited when he was executed on October 28.
Grant was the first person to be executed in Oklahoma since a string of flawed fatal injections in 2014 and 2015 resulted in a de facto moratorium. Richard Glossip was only hours away from his execution in September 2015 when prison officials discovered they had been given the wrong lethal drug. It was later discovered that in January 2015, an inmate had been executed on the same fake drug
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The drug mix-up followed a botched execution in -ril 2014 in which inmate Clayton Lockett struggled on a stretcher before dying 43 minutes after his fatal injection – and after the state prison chief ordered executioners to stop.
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