By The Associated Press
The governor of Oklahoma, Republican Kevin Stitt, commuted Julius Jones's death sentence on Thursday, halting the planned execution in just a few hours in favor of a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Jones, 41, who has maintained his innocence for more than 20 years, was to be executed in McAlester state jail for the 1999 murder of Paul Howell, a businessman from Edmond, a wealthy Oklahoma City suburb.
His execution had garnered the most public attention in decades in this state, leading to Oklahoma City high school students dropping their classes, holding vigils outside the state Capitol, and erecting barricades in front of the governor's mansion.
Even Baker Mayfield, quarterback for the NFL's Cleveland Browns, spoke out against Jones' execution.
Julius Jones, in an image provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections on February 5, 2018.
"Yeah, it's pretty tough, to be honest," Mayfield said Wednesday, his eyes filling with tears.
"It is not something that is easy to talk about. I have been trying to get the facts out for a while and the truth to be told. It is a shame that it got this far," he added.
The governor had stayed out of the case, although he had met with lawyers for Jones and Howell's family.
Jones's mother, Madeline-Davis-Jones, who tried unsuccessfully to meet with Stitt on Monday, addressed a group of about 300 people, many of them students from nearby high schools, gathered Wednesday in front of the politician's office.
"I don't want to go to a lynching tomorrow," Davis-Jones said, her voice thick with emotion.
"Why would I want to see someone hanging? We should end that. Do you want your baby, your child, to be hanged?" He asked.
Jones claims he was blamed for a crime allegedly committed by a friend from high school, a co-defendant who testified against him and was released after 15 years in jail.
State and county prosecutors have said the evidence against Jones is overwhelming.
Trial transcripts show that witnesses identified Jones as the person who shot the victim and placed him next to Howell's stolen vehicle.
Investigators also found the murder weapon wrapped in a handkerchief bearing Jones' DNA in his bedroom.
Jones claims that the murder weapon was placed there by the real murderer, who visited his home after the crime.
The state Board of Pardons and Paroles twice voted 3-1 to recommend that Stitt grant Jones a pardon and commute his sentence to life in prison.
The governor's spokesman, Charlie Hannema, said the governor "takes its role in this process seriously and is carefully considering the recommendation of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, as it does in all cases."
Paul Howell's sister, Megan Tobey, told the panel that she clearly remembers seeing Jones shoot her brother in front of their two young daughters.
"He is the same person today as 22 years ago. He continues to get into trouble. He is still in a gang. He continues to lie. And he continues to feel no shame, guilt or remorse for his action," he reproached.
"We need Julius Jones to be held accountable," he added.
In a separate vote Wednesday, the same board voted 3-2 in favor of clemency in the case of another death row inmate, Bigler Stouffer, citing concerns with state-supplied lethal injection protocols.
Stouffer's death sentence is scheduled to be carried out on December 9.
The Jones case is one of the central parts of the documentary
The Last Defense
, produced by actress Viola Davis and aired on ABC in 2018. Since then, Kim Kardashian West and Oklahoma-linked athletes such as Mayfield and NBA stars Russell Westbrook , Blake Griffin and Trae Young have urged Stitt to commute his death sentence.
Oklahoma ended a six-year moratorium on executions last month due to controversy surrounding its lethal injection formula.
On October 28, inmate John Marion Grant, 60, became the first person to be executed after this break.
However, he suffered vomiting and seizures during the process.
Within hours of Richard Glossip's execution in September 2015, prison officials realized they had received the wrong lethal drug.
It later emerged that the same wrong drug had been used to sentence another inmate in January 2015.
The drug mix-ups followed a botched execution in April 2014 in which the convicted Clayton Lockett struggled on a stretcher before dying 43 minutes after receiving the lethal injection.
