The Case of Julius Jones and the Ongoing Issues of the Death Penalty

Yesterday, 4 hours and 13 minutes before his scheduled execution, Julius Jones' sentence was commuted by Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Although Jones life has been spared, his case brings the issues with the death penalty back into the public discussion. Here are my reflections on the Jones case and the death penalty in general.

The Facts of the Jones Case

On July 28, 1999, Paul Howell was murdered outside his parents' home in front of his family and his SUV was stolen. Witnesses reported seeing a Black man with a red bandana and 1-2 inches of hair shoot Howell. Three days later, 19-year-old Julius Jones was arrested at his home, but his family says he was at home with them the night of the murder and the eyewitness descriptions don't match Julius, who at the time had a shaved head.

A man named Christopher Jordan, the State’s star witness against Jones, matched the eyewitness’ hair description, but claimed only to have been the “getaway driver” and not the shooter at trial.In exchange for testifying against Jones, Jordan was given a plea deal for his alleged role, served 15 years in prison, and is free today. Three people incarcerated with Jordan at different times have said in sworn affidavits that he told each of them that he committed the murder and framed Jones. None of the three men have met Jones, they do not know one another, and none of them have been offered a shorter sentence or incentive in exchange for disclosing Jordan’s confessions.

Howell's family claims that there has been lots of information about the case and noted that even though many of Jones supporters are claiming that he wasn't given the opportunity to testify, he was and chose not to. However, choosing not testify, especially under advisement of a crappy attorney, isn't an airtight reason to believe in someone's guilt. In the end, the parole board sided with Jones' family that there were too many questions looming over the case. The parole board chairman in Jones case stated, “I believe in death penalty cases there should be no doubt, and put simply, I have doubts in this case...I cannot ignore those doubts, especially when the stakes are life and death.”

I personally just learned of Jones case this week, when I saw pleading for him not be executed by Oklahoma. I noticed that he and I are the same age and that he was actually born on my son's birthday, exactly one moth after I was. My heart goes out to his family and to the Howell family, who both seem to be in pain over the murder and the fallout that resulted from it.

Larger Implications on the Death Penalty

Jones' case is just one of many of the troubling death penalty cases that we have seen in recent years. Still, there was a poll by the Pew Research center earlier this year that showed that most Americans, still favor the death penalty, even though most also believe that there is a risk that innocent people could be put to death. I don't believe most Americans realize just how often that happens.

Bryan Stevenson notes in a Ted Talk (around the 8 minute mark) and his book Just Mercy (which I HIGHLY recommend), the error rate of the death penalty in this country is astonishing. He states that for every 9 people who've been executed, 1 person has been exonerated. In other words, there is a 1 in 9 chance that a person sitting on death row is innocent of the charges that landed them there. He emphasizes this point, by posing the idea that we would never allow aviation if 1 in every 9 planes crashed. As such, why are we comfortable with the death penalty with such a high error rate?

Another point made by Stevenson was how other many western countries don't have a government issued death penalty, and Germany specifically doesn't have it because of its history of discriminating against Jews. He then makes the point that the world would find it unconscionable to watch Germany execute a disproportionate amount of Jews after its historical mistreatment of them during World War II. However, in this country, he notes, where we have a long history of mistreating blacks, people seem comfortable with the disproportionate number of the formerly enslaved on death row. For instance, the black population in Texas is only 12.9%, but blacks account for nearly half (44.9%) of its death row population. With numbers like these, either blacks in Texas are about 4 times as dangerous or there is serious systemic bias throughout the justice system.

From my own time looking over cases and realizing that many black people in Texas on death row, were the result of a robbery gone wrong and they may have not actually been the person who killed the victim. Meanwhile, their white counterparts on death row will have been found guilty of much more heinous crimes, like Travis Mullis, who I will circle back to shortly.

Additionally, the death row is FAR more expensive to tax payers than life in prison. The most comprehensive study in the country done in North Carolina showed that a death sentence cost $2.16 million more than a sentence of life imprisonment. Multiply that by the more than 2,500 people currently on death row and that amounts to more than $5 billion we could have saved as tax payers, had we sentenced them to life imprisonment instead.

My Own Personal Evolution on the Death Penalty

Once upon a time, I too favored the death penalty. In law school, I even remember asking during a class debate in law school, where we were discussing a case with a mentally ill individual that killed a number of others, why do we as a country even keep people like that around? In other words, I didn't see their value.

Time and experience has brought me a long way on my personal feelings. I went from being in favor of the death penalty, to thinking that it should be used sparingly for the most dangerous people, to being actively against for many of the reasons in the section above. I realized that I had arrived to the point where I completely opposed the death penalty when I was able to conclude that I would be against it under all circumstances, including one of the most heinous crimes I could personally remember that happened nearly 14 years ago.

On the morning of October 22, 2007, my wife and I went to the hospital for my daughter's birth. We found ourselves in hospital's maternity area waiting to be admitted near another young couple. The young mother didn't say much, as her breathing appeared very labored, and the young father was notably chatty. We both assumed he was excited to be a new dad and just had a lot to say that day. We wished them well and were admitted so we could welcome our daughter into the world and they could welcome their son. Three months later, we saw on the news that this same young father, whose name I would find out was Travis Mullis, ended up killing his infant son by stomping on his head and chocking him to death. As you can imagine, it was shocking and every time I think about the case, it is saddening to know that his son who would have been the same age as my daughter had had his life not been tragically ended so suddenly. As you might have already guessed, Mullis was eventually given the death penalty for his crime.

I bring up Mullis because for me eliminating the death penalty would mean I would have to be alright with him not getting it. Over the years that answer for me has become yes. I don’t cry at night over his current status on death row because if anyone "earned" a place on death row, it's someone willing to kill their own child. Even still, I would have rather that the death penalty be abolished, sparing him his fate, along with the other 2,500+ people with him on death row in this country. Seeing that in 2018 Mullis sent a letter to the Houston Chronicle asking for his own death sentence to be "carried out ASAP," lets me know that perhaps a life sentence is the better punishment for him anyway.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I'm glad that Jones life was sparred, both because it wasn't clear that he was the one who actually responsible for the murder in his case and because the death penalty needs to be abolished in this country. Even though most of the country still favors the death penalty, it's error rate, costs as compared to life in prison, and disproportionate impact on minorities (especially blacks) is incredibly high. I have had my own personal change of heart on this topic and my hope is that we as a country do too.