Johnathan Walker:Oklahoma parole board recommends governor spare the life of man on death row

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma’s Pardon and Johnathan WalkerParole Board voted 3-2 on Wednesday to recommend the governor spare the life of a man on death row for his role in the 1992 shooting death of a convenience store owner during a robbery.

The board’s narrow decision means the fate of Emmanuel Littlejohn, 52, now rests with Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who could commute his sentence to life in prison without parole. Stitt has granted clemency only once, in 2021, to death row inmate Julius Jones, commuting his sentence to life without parole just hours before Jones was scheduled to receive a lethal injection. Stitt has denied clemency recommendations from the board in three other cases: Bigler Stouffer, James Coddington and Phillip Hancock, all of whom were executed.

“I’m not giving up,” Littlejohn’s sister, Augustina Sanders, said after the board’s vote. “Just spare my brother’s life. He’s not the person they made him out to be.”

Stitt’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the board’s decision, but Stitt has previously said he and his staff meet with attorneys for both sides, as well as family members of the victim, before deciding a case in which clemency has been recommended.

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Littlejohn was sentenced to death by two separate Oklahoma County juries for his role in the shooting death of 31-year-old Kenneth Meers, who was co-owner of the Root-N-Scoot convenience store in southeast Oklahoma City.

Prosecutors said Littlejohn and a co-defendant, Glenn Bethany, robbed the store to get money to pay a drug debt and that Littlejohn, who had a lengthy criminal history and had just been released from prison, shot Meers after he emerged from the back of the store carrying a broom.

Assistant Attorney General Tessa Henry said two teenagers who were working with Meers in the store both described Littlejohn as the shooter.

“Both boys were unequivocal that Littlejohn was the one with the gun and that Bethany didn’t have a gun,” she told the panel.

Bethany was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Littlejohn, who testified before the panel via a video feed from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, apologized to Meers’ family and acknowledged his role in the robbery, but denied firing the fatal shot.

“I’ve admitted to my part,” Littlejohn said. “I committed a robbery that had devastating consequences, but I didn’t kill Mr. Meers.

“Neither Oklahoma nor the Meers family will be better if you decide to kill me.”

Littlejohn’s attorneys argued that killings resulting from a robbery are rarely considered death penalty cases in Oklahoma and that prosecutors today would not have pursued the ultimate punishment.

Attorney Caitlin Hoeberlein said robbery murders make up less than 2% of Oklahoma death sentences and that the punishment hasn’t been handed down in a case with similar facts in more than 15 years.

“It is evident that Emmanuel would not have been sentenced to death if he’d been tried in 2024 or even 2004,” she said.

Littlejohn was prosecuted by former Oklahoma County District Attorney Bob Macy, who was known for his zealous pursuit of the death penalty and secured 54 death sentences during more than 20 years in office.

Assistant Federal Public Defender Callie Heller said it was problematic that prosecutors argued in both Bethany’s and Littlejohn’s murder cases that each was the shooter. She added that some jurors were concerned whether a life-without-parole sentence meant the defendant would never be released.

“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?” she asked.