Oklahoma completes execution despite clemency recommendation by Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board

As detailed in this new PBS News Hour piece, “Oklahoma executed death row inmate Phillip Hancock on Thursday, despite his claims of self defense and a recommendation for clemency by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board.”  Here is more:

Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt’s decision to allow the execution to move forward comes as some state Republicans and advocates call for a pause in executions and a review of Oklahoma’s 36 pending death row cases.

Hancock, 59, was convicted of two murders in 2001.  His attorneys and supporters maintain that he acted in self-defense, saying he was unarmed when he entered an Oklahoma City residence where Robert Jett Jr., 37, and James Lynch, 58, the two murder victims, were present.  Hancock has said he was attacked, beaten with a breakover bar, and threatened with a gun before managing to retrieve the weapon and fatally shooting the two men.  Hancock’s defense team argued the trial lacked physical evidence supporting the prosecution’s version of events.  A woman present during the incident testified that she could not witness the struggle, further complicating the narrative over what happened.

The state board voted 3-2 in favor of clemency in early November.  It was the fourth such recommendation since the state resumed executions in 2021, following a six-year moratorium. Stitt, who previously commuted the sentence of Julius Jones in 2021, did not intervene this time. He denied Hancock’s request for clemency just after 10 a.m. local time, when the execution was scheduled to begin….

Oklahoma has executed 122 people since 1976, the highest number of executions per capita in the country. 

“We are profoundly disappointed that Gov. Stitt has rejected the Pardon and Parole Board’s recommendation of clemency for Phillip Hancock,” Brett Farley of the Oklahoma Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty said in a statement. Oklahoma’s practice of capital punishment continues to be riddled with problems, including the inability of the state to prevent the execution of innocent people. Should the state proceed with the scheduled execution on Thursday, it will be yet another gross miscarriage of justice. Phillip’s case is one more reminder why we must insist state leaders reinstate a moratorium in order to correct these problems.”

Republican state Reps. Kevin McDugle and Justin J.J. Humphrey have been critical of Oklahoma’s death row sentences, saying people have been subject to system-wide failures in the state’s justice system, from ineffective defense counsel to prosecutorial overreach.  McDugle said that Hancock was undeserving of such a punishment.  “Right now I don’t believe in the death penalty in Oklahoma. I don’t,” McDugle told the PBS NewsHour in October.  “That’s why we are trying to fix it because if we can’t fix it to where we can execute those who deserve to be executed and quit executing those who don’t deserve to be executed … then we need to get rid of it.”

Earlier this year, supporters of Hancock, including his attorneys, provided the state board with key declarations.  One statement from Hancock’s former girlfriend claimed she arranged with one of the victims to lure Hancock to the house to be “taken care of.”  Hancock’s trial attorney, who admitted to a relapse of drug and alcohol addiction during the case, expressed embarrassment about his representation.  The foreperson of the jury that convicted Hancock provided a declaration that the majority of jurors believed Hancock initially acted in self-defense but later became the aggressor.