The People Who Helped Save 2 Men From Execution
Caroline MolloyIn Oklahoma, the state with the highest execution rate in the country, it is exceedingly rare for a person on death row to receive clemency. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, just six people in the state have had their death sentences commuted. The last two, Julius Jones in 2021 and Tremane Wood last month, were represented by the same legal team: federal public defender Amanda Bass Castro Alves and investigators Lamont Williams and Rebecca Postyeni, from the Arizona Federal Defender’s Capital Habeas Unit.
Jones and Wood are both Black men who were sentenced to death in cases involving white victims, by nearly all-white juries during the height of death penalty prosecutions in Oklahoma. (Black people are disproportionately sentenced to death, and a 2020 study found that defendants convicted of killing white people were executed at a rate of 17 times greater than those convicted of killing Black people.) Both men were represented at trial by court-appointed lawyers who would later admit to doing a poor job defending their clients.
Jones was convicted of the 1999 murder of Paul Howell, a crime he has always said he did not commit. No one on his legal team had ever worked a death penalty case, and his lead attorney later said he was “terrified” because of his “inexperience.” Once Jones’ case reached Bass Castro Alves’ team, they discovered that jurors never heard from Jones’ family, who could have provided an alibi, or from a man who said that Jones’ codefendant admitted to the killing. They also tracked down a juror who recalled another juror calling Jones the N-word during deliberations and saying the trial was a waste of time.
Those revelations weren’t enough to get Jones a new trial — but they did help spur a national pressure campaign calling for mercy. Ultimately, Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) granted Jones clemency in the hours before his scheduled execution.
A few years after Jones’ arrest, prosecutors sought death sentences against Wood and his older brother for the killing of Ronnie Wipf during a botched robbery. Under the state’s felony murder statute, prosecutors didn’t have to prove who actually killed Wipf in order to secure convictions — only that they each participated in the robbery that led to his death.
Wood denied killing Wipf, but was represented by a lawyer who did almost no work on the case. He was sentenced to death. His older brother, who testified at Wood’s trial that he was the killer, had an experienced capital defense team. He received a life sentence, but died by suicide shortly after his brother became eligible for execution.
Again, Bass Castro Alves’ team discovered a litany of issues in Wood’s case. There was evidence that his trial lawyer used drugs and alcohol before going to work while representing Wood. The only Black juror on the case would later say she felt pressured into voting for death. Prosecutors lied about incentives offered to witnesses in exchange for their testimony, and one of the judges overseeing Wood’s appeal appeared to be friends with the prosecutor Wood was accusing of misconduct. In the final weeks ahead of Wood’s execution date, the state’s attorney general secretly sought help from another judge to ensure the killing would go forward.
Within the Oklahoma death penalty abolition community, Bass Castro Alves and her team are regarded as miracle workers. “God has used them before. God can use them again,” Rev. Keith Jossell, Jones’ spiritual adviser, said at a prayer vigil in Oklahoma City the night before Wood’s execution date.
During a legal visit just ahead of Jones’ scheduled execution in 2021, Wood encouraged their shared legal team not to give up hope. Four years later, it was Jones’ turn to pray for Wood. “You guys have been here before,” Jones told the legal team. “If anybody can do it, you guys can do it.”
On Nov. 13, minutes before Wood’s killing was scheduled to begin, Stitt granted his clemency request.
HuffPost spoke with the team about how they approach investigation, litigation, community organizing and the increasing level of opposition to the death penalty in bright-red Oklahoma.
