An Oklahoma man was executed Thursday morning after the state’s governor rejected a parole board recommendation of life in prison without parole.
Emmanuel Littlejohn was pronounced dead at 10:17 a.m. at the age of 52 in a state prison in McAlester.
Littlejohn was convicted of fatally shooting a convenience store owner, Kenneth Meers, in 1992 in Oklahoma City. He was robbing the store with a friend, Glenn Bethany, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Authorities said Littlejohn fired the fatal shot.
In August, Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 to recommend Littlejohn’s sentence be commuted to life without parole. But Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, rejected that advice.
“A jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death,” Stitt said in a statement. “I have a hard time unilaterally overturning that decision.”
Stitt, governor since 2019, has received five recommendations for clemency from the parole board and rejected four of them, including Littlejohn’s. Prior to 2021, Oklahoma hadn’t executed anyone in six years. Since then, it has carried out 14 executions.
“Kevin Stitt is a coward,” the Rev. Jeff Hood, Littlejohn’s spiritual advisor, told USA Today. Hood prayed over Littlejohn as he died Thursday.
Littlejohn and Bethany burst into a Root-N-Scott store on June 19, 1992, because they owed a debt, according to authorities. When Meers, 31, charged at the two men with a broom, Littlejohn shot him dead, witnesses told police.
Oklahoma County District Attorney Bob Macy prosecuted the cases and secured a death penalty conviction against Littlejohn in 1994. It was one of 54 death sentences handed down under Macy during his 20 years as Oklahoma City’s chief prosecutor, more than any other single prosecutor in the U.S., according to a 2016 study.
With News Wire Services
