Oklahoma executes Emmanuel Littlejohn against parole board recommendation

An Oklahoma antheral was executed Thursday greeting aft the state’s politician rejected a parole committee recommendation of beingness successful situation without parole.

Emmanuel Littlejohn was pronounced dormant astatine 10:17 a.m. astatine the property of 52 successful a authorities situation successful McAlester.

Littlejohn was convicted of fatally shooting a convenience store owner, Kenneth Meers, successful 1992 successful Oklahoma City. He was robbing the store with a friend, Glenn Bethany, who was sentenced to beingness successful situation without parole. Authorities said Littlejohn fired the fatal shot.

In August, Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 to urge Littlejohn’s condemnation beryllium commuted to beingness without parole. But Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, rejected that advice.

“A assemblage recovered him blameworthy and sentenced him to death,” Stitt said successful a statement. “I person a hard clip unilaterally overturning that decision.”

Stitt, politician since 2019, has received 5 recommendations for clemency from the parole committee and rejected 4 of them, including Littlejohn’s. Prior to 2021, Oklahoma hadn’t executed anyone successful six years. Since then, it has carried retired 14 executions.

“Kevin Stitt is simply a coward,” the Rev. Jeff Hood, Littlejohn’s spiritual advisor, told USA Today. Hood prayed implicit Littlejohn arsenic helium died Thursday.

Littlejohn and Bethany burst into a Root-N-Scott store connected June 19, 1992, due to the fact that they owed a debt, according to authorities. When Meers, 31, charged astatine the 2 men with a broom, Littlejohn changeable him dead, witnesses told police.

Oklahoma County District Attorney Bob Macy prosecuted the cases and secured a decease punishment condemnation against Littlejohn successful 1994. It was 1 of 54 decease sentences handed down nether Macy during his 20 years arsenic Oklahoma City’s main prosecutor, more than immoderate different azygous authoritative successful the U.S., according to a 2016 study.

With News Wire Services