Andy Lester, a former U.S. Magistrate Judge and co-chair of the 2017 Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission, has again called for a moratorium on executions in Oklahoma, as the state prepares to execute Emmanuel Littlejohn on September 26.
The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommended clemency for Littlejohn last month. Littlejohn has sat on death row for over three decades despite a lack of evidence establishing who fired the shot in the death of a store owner during a robbery.
In a new column, Lester reminds Oklahomans that the 2017 bipartisan commission’s “examination of all aspects of Oklahoma’s implementation of the death penalty left us all with deep concerns about whether the state administers capital punishment fairly, consistently and humanely.” The commission called for executions to remain halted “until significant reforms have been accomplished.” Today, he laments, “the state has implemented virtually none of the commission’s recommended reforms.”
