![]() ![]() Howell’s family testified before the parole board and said they are convinced of Jones’ guilt. Howell’s sister was an eyewitness to the crime. Moments later, he was shot and killed - the victim of a carjacking. Prosecutors have said Jones told a different story after his arrest.īut around the same time that evening, less than 20 miles away, Paul Howell was pulling up to his own parents’ house. That’s according to the Innocence Project, a nonprofit focused on exonerating the wrongly convicted. On the night of July 28, 1999, Jones says he was with his family at his parents’ Oklahoma City house having dinner and playing board games. Questions around Jones’ co-defendant’s story Oklahoma executed John Marion Grant in October and has several more executions planned for the coming months. If Jones’ execution goes ahead, it would be just the second in Oklahoma since 2015, when the state paused the practice after it was found to be using an incorrect mix of drugs in the process. Oklahoma uses lethal injection to conduct executions. The Oklahoma City Public Schools told The New York Times that more than 1,800 students across 13 schools participated in the demonstration. Students from several area schools took part in a walkout on Wednesday to protest Jones’ impending execution. “My heart breaks for Julius and so many others who have suffered from such tragic miscarriage of justice.” In just over two weeks, an innocent man could be put to death,” Kardashian West tweeted. “This is the cold machinery of the Death Penalty in America. Major names like reality star Kim Kardashian West, who has become a criminal justice advocate, and Baker Mayfield, quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, are calling for justice in Jones’ case. He could also delay the execution to take more time to review the case or allow the execution to go ahead as planned. If he decides to step in, Stitt could go with the parole board’s recommendation to commute Jones’ sentence. Kevin Stitt has not acted on the recommendation. ![]() Questions over Jones’ role in Howell’s murder led to Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board to recommend earlier this month that his death sentence be commuted to life in prison with the possibility of parole, according to KOSU. Attorneys fighting for his freedom say the case leading to his conviction was seriously flawed. Jones has always maintained his innocence. Jones, 41, was sentenced to death for the 1999 shooting death of Paul Howell in Edmond, Okla. Julius was hanging out with the wrong crowd and that landed him in the position he’s in today.Family members, activists and celebrities are hoping their last-minute appeals to Oklahoma’s governor could save the life of Julius Jones, a man set to be executed at 4 p.m. “The most important is that you have to always make sure you are doing the right thing. “He also wanted me to pass a few messages along that were really important to him,” she wrote in a thread. On Thursday, Kardashian took to Twitter to thank Stitt and share that she had spoken with Jones on Wednesday. Several celebrities, including Kim Kardashian, have advocated for his stay. Jones, who was 19 at the time, has maintained his innocence. Jones was convicted in 2002 of first-degree murder in the killing of Paul Howell during a carjacking where he was fatally shot in 1999. “After prayerful consideration and reviewing materials presented by all sides of this case, I have determined to commute Julius Jones’s sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole,” Stitt said in a statement. Jones will now serve life in prison, The New York Timesreports. Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt commuted the death sentence of Julius Jones hours before he was set to be executed for a murder conviction on Thursday.
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