29 November 2020 :

Kim Kardashian visits death row inmate Julius Jones. Jones has been on death row since 2002.
Kim Kardashian is continuing to use her platform and legal training to help free those she believes have been wrongfully incarcerated. Kardashian’s latest efforts have been geared towards Julius Jones, a man who has been sitting on death row in Oklahoma for the past 20 years. Kardashian met with Jones, as well as his legal team and family.
In 1999, 19-year-old Jones was attending college after receiving a football scholarship. He was home for the summer when he and a teammate, Christopher Jordan, were arrested for the murder of 45-year-old businessman Paul Howell, White. Jordan, who fit the description of the murderer provided by a witness, told police that it was Jones who shot Howell. For his testimony, Jordan received a shorter sentence and has since been released. Jones, who had no history of violence, was sentenced to death. Jones’ supporters note that he was given inadequate counsel and that many key factors in the case that would have proven his innocence were never presented in court. The district attorney at the time had the highest rate for death penalty convictions in the US. Race was also likely a factor in Jones’ arrest, trial and sentencing.
According to TMZ, Kardashian became aware of Jones’ case after watching the 2018 docuseries, The Last Defense (See HoC 12/06/2018). Produced by Viola Davis and her husband, Julius Tennon, the 7-episode documentary series examined Jones’ case as well as the case of Darlie Routier, a Texas woman who was sentenced to death for the murder of her 2 children. Like Jones, many believe that Routier was also wrongfully convicted.
TMZ reports that Kardashian met with Jones and his attorney, Dale Baich, in Oklahoma City. Kardashian promised to help with Jones’ case in any way that she could and later met with his family, including his parents and siblings, at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Oklahoma City. Jones’ mother maintains her son’s innocence and says that he was home with her the night of the shooting. Jones was sentenced in 2002, and in 2019 filed a petition for clemency. It’s now up to the Oklahoma parole board and Governor Kevin Stitt to decide whether Jones’ sentence should be reduced or commuted.
In addition to Davis and Kardashian, John Legend and Common have also shown their support for Jones. Several pro athletes, including NBA players Blake Griffin, Russell Westbrook, Trae Young and Buddy Hield, and NFL quarterback Baker Mayfield, have also sent letters to the governor of Oklahoma’s office in support of Jones. The involvement of high profile celebrities in Jones’ case has helped to garner more than 6.1 million signatures on Jones’ Change.org petition.
Kardashian has been working towards her law degree for the past 2 years and has frequently used her celebrity to help bring attention to cases of first-time and nonviolent offenders. Kardashian has had success with helping to reduce or commute the sentences of several former inmates, and most recently supported singer Monica and her effort to exonerate rapper Corey Miller, who used the stage name C-Murder. Miller has been serving a life sentence since 2009 for the killing of a 16-year-old outside a club in New Orleans. Miller has maintained his innocence, and Kardashian is currently working with Reform Alliance members Jessica Jackson and Erin Haney to help secure his release.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8981595/Kim-Kardashian-visits-Death-Row-inmate-Julius-Jones.html

13 July 2020 :

The United States Supreme Court has vacated the conviction of Patrick Dwayne Murphy. The Court affirmed a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit that had voided Patrick Dwayne Murphy’s murder conviction and death sentence imposed in the Oklahoma state courts. On August 8, 2017, the Tenth Circuit granted Murphy habeas corpus relief, finding that the murder, which occurred in Henryetta, Oklahoma, had been committed on lands within the borders of the Creek Reservation. The Court wrote: “Because Mr. Murphy is an Indian and because the crime occurred in Indian country, the federal court has exclusive jurisdiction. Oklahoma lacked jurisdiction.”   Murphy still faces prosecution for murder in the federal courts, but federal prosecutors will not be able to seek the death penalty. In an historic ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma, the Court declared that Congress had never disestablished the Creek Reservation that was created by treaties in 1832, 1833, and 1856 in the aftermath of the federal government’s forcible relocation of the Creek and four other Indian nations from their homes in Alabama and Georgia. The decision affirmed that these lands were “Indian Country,” as defined by federal law, within which Oklahoma lacked jurisdiction to attempt to try tribal members for serious offenses. The Supreme Court’s ruling ended two years of procedural machinations in the case. The Court initially granted certiorari to review the case on May 21, 2018. However, Justice Neil Gorsuch, an anticipated swing vote on the issue, recused himself because of prior involvement in the case as a circuit court judge. After hearing argument on the case in its 2018-2019 term, the shorthanded court could not reach a decision and re-listed the case for the current term. While Murphy’s case was pending, the Court granted review in McGirt v. Oklahoma, a non-capital case argued May 11, 2020 and decided July 9, 2020, that raised the same issue. The McGirt Decision. Like Murphy, Jimcy McGirt is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. McGirt was convicted of rape in the Oklahoma state courts and challenged his conviction on jurisdictional grounds, saying the offense had occurred on tribal lands. The State of Oklahoma argued to the Court that it should uphold McGirt’s conviction because doing otherwise could result in challenges to thousands of state convictions. Writing for a 5-4 majority, Justice Gorsuch concluded that almost half of Oklahoma, including much of the city of Tulsa, remains Indian Country. The Court found that the federal government had reserved land for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation through a series of treaties signed by the U.S. Government and the Creek Nation that was part of the “Trail of Tears,” the forced migration of tens of thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral lands to territory west of the Mississippi River. The Court’s decision recognized that the United States has repeatedly violated treaty obligations to Native Americans. However, it said, this history of faithlessness does not mean that the state of Oklahoma can ignore treaties that reserved land for the Creek Nation. The Supreme Court has previously held that the U.S. can break treaties with Indian nations only through the explicit action of Congress to “disestablish” reserved lands. Justice Gorsuch wrote, “it’s no matter how many other promises to a tribe the federal government has already broken. If Congress wishes to break the promise of a reservation, it must say so.” In response to arguments that the long-standing practice of prosecuting Native Americans in state court was proof that the reserved lands were “disestablished,” the Court recognized that “unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law.” Because Congress never disestablished the Creek Nation’s reservation, much of Oklahoma remains Indian Country. Gorsuch wrote that the federal Major Crimes Act vests federal courts with exclusive jurisdiction over enumerated serious crimes committed by Indians in Indian Country, so the Oklahoma state courts had no authority to convict McGirt. The State of Oklahoma argued that recognizing the continued existence of the Creek Nation’s reservation could lead thousands of Native American defendants to challenge their state convictions. It also argued that a ruling in favor of tribal sovereignty would lead to chaos in a wide range of non-criminal matters. The Court rejected this argument, finding the scope of the potential remedy irrelevant. Justice Gorsuch noted that “the magnitude of a legal wrong is no reason to perpetuate it.” Justice Gorsuch was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor in the McGirt v. Oklahoma majority. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas dissented. The vote in Murphy’s case was 6-2, with Justices Thomas and Alito dissenting. Although he authored the opinion that ultimately entitled Murphy to relief, Justice Gorsuch in did not participate in deciding the case. Read the McGirt v. Oklahoma opinion here; read the Sharp v. Murphy opinion here.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/patrick-dwayne-murphys-oklahoma-conviction-and-death-sentence-vacated-by-sweeping-supreme-court-decision-reaffirming-tribal-sovereignty

27 April 2020 :

Federal Court Approves Settlement of Death-Row Conditions Lawsuit. Federal judge John E. Jones III has approved a settlement of a class action challenge to the conditions of confinement on Pennsylvania’s death row that officially ends the state’s policy of mandatory incarceration of death-row prisoners in permanent solitary confinement. The court approval comes nearly five months after the Department of Corrections agreed to a tentative change to the conditions of incarceration. In a 14-page Memorandum and Order, Judge John E. Jones III of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania called the former conditions “draconian” and expressed “absolutely no hesitancy” in accepting the proposed agreement, which he said “effectuates a sweeping alteration of the class members’ conditions of confinement.” The settlement agreement, reached in November 2019, provides death-row prisoners with at least 42.5 hours a week out of their cells and 15 minutes of phone access each day and allows prisoners to have contact visits, outdoor exercise, daily showers, group religious services, jobs, and access to educational programs. It also ends the Commonwealth’s practices of subjecting death-row prisoners to body cavity searches whenever they leave their cells and requiring 24-hour illumination of the prisoners’ cells. Pennsylvania had already begun implementing some of the terms of the agreement in anticipation of its approval. Prior to the settlement, prisoners on death row were kept alone in their 8-by-12-foot cells for 22 hours on weekdays and all day on weekends, and they were denied human contact with family members and direct access to their lawyers during visits. They also were not eligible for jobs or educational opportunities. The settlement also includes a provision to provide “resocialization assistance” for those who endured solitary confinement. Several other states have recently taken similar steps to improve the conditions of confinement for prisoners on death row. On May 3, 2019 (see), a federal appeals court in Virginia ruled that the Commonwealth’s former policy of 23- or 24-hour per day solitary confinement of death-row prisoners constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Two months later, in the midst of a federal lawsuit challenging its death-row conditions, South Carolina ended its practice of housing death-row prisoners in as much as 23-hour per day solitary confinement in windowless cells the size of a parking space (see July 11, 2019). In September 2019, Oklahoma ended its policy of housing its death-row prisoners in solitary confinement in an underground facility that civil rights groups had called “inhumane and oppressive.” The groups had threatened legal action if the state did not institute reforms. Decades of research show that solitary confinement, like that experienced by death row prisoners, is deeply detrimental to mental health, and international human rights groups have likened it to torture.