11 November 2023 :
November 8, 2023 - Phillip Hancock receives clemency recommendation
The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted Wednesday to recommend clemency for Phillip Hancock, a man accused of fatally shooting 2 men in 2021, in what Hancock has maintained was self-defense.
Board members voted 3-2 to recommend clemency for Hancock, 59, who is scheduled to be put to death on Nov. 30 after an Oklahoma County jury found Hancock guilty of the April 27, 2001, murders of Robert Jett Jr., 37, and James Lynch, 58 in Oklahoma City.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt ultimately decides whether to take the board’s recommendation to grant clemency with no set timeframe given to make his decision.
Attorneys for Hancock provided the Board with a declaration from Hancock’s former girlfriend saying she arranged with Jett “to lure Hancock to his house to be ‘taken care of.’”
Another declaration was provided by Hancock’s trial attorney, who admitted he was experiencing a relapse of drug and alcohol addiction while he was representing Hancock and was “embarrassed by the job” he did on the case.
The foreperson of the jury who convicted Hancock also provided a declaration how she believed Hancock was attacked and initially acted in self-defense but adopted the prosecution’s narrative that he “flipped to an aggressor” before firing the fatal shots.
