30 September 2024 :
September 26, 2024 - Oklahoma. Emmanuel Littlejohn, 52, Black, was executed on September 26
The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted to recommend clemency for Littlejohn
Littlejohn was on death row for the 1992 murder of Kenneth Meers during a robbery.
Littlejohn was executed by lethal injection at 10:17 a.m. on Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Steven Harpe as well as media witnesses said the execution was carried out without any issues.
Part of Littlejohn's last words were asking if his mother was okay and telling her and his daughter that he loved them. He also told them that he was okay and that everything was going to be okay.
He was convicted of killing Kenneth Meers during a robbery and shooting at a Root-N-Scoot convenience store. Littlejohn and Glenn Bethany were arrested in November 1994, but court documents said it's unclear who fired the fatal shot.
Littlejohn, and co-defendant Glenn Bethany, age 26 at the time, were convicted for the death of 31-year-old convenience store co-owner Mr. Meers, who died from a single gunshot wound, during their robbery of the store. Despite prosecutors first arguing in 1993 that Mr. Bethany was the shooter responsible, resulting in a sentence of life without parole, they then argued the opposite in the 1994 trial of Mr. Littlejohn, implicating him as the shooter rather than an accomplice in the robbery. The jury, which was unaware of the sentence handed down previously in Mr. Bethany’s case, sentenced Mr. Littlejohn to death, which was later overturned on appeal. “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?” argued Assistant Federal Public Defender Callie Heller during the clemency hearing.
Littlejohn maintained his innocence up until his execution, insisting Bethany was the one who shot and killed Meers. His lawyer also said he had brain damage from childhood trauma that impaired his cognitive ability.
The execution came after the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, on August 7, voted 3-2 in favor of recommending clemency for Littlejohn. Gov. Kevin Stitt did not grant it.
"These decisions are very difficult and I do not make them lightly. Mr. Littlejohn murdered an innocent man" Stitt said in a statement after the execution. "A jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death. The decision was upheld by multiple judges. As a law and order governor, I have a hard time unilaterally overturning that decision. Today, justice for this life lost was carried out. I hope this brings closure to the families impacted by this murder."
In recent years, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board has recommended clemency about a half-dozen times, with Stitt declining to intervene in all instances except for his commutation of Julius Jones’ death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Stitt’s decision to commute one sentence while denying other similar recommendations has confused observers and raised questions about the consistency of his considerations.
Littlejohn is the 3rd person executed this year in Oklahoma, the 126th overall since Oklahoma resumed executions in 1990, the 17th this year in the US, and the n. 1599 since the United States resumed executions in 1977.
https://www.koco.com/article/emmanuel-littlejohn-execution-oklahoma/62383879
