Oklahoma decides not to kill Julius Jones

Julius Jones's death sentence gets an 11th-hour reversal; as Sudan was supposed to transition to civilian power, security forces kill 14.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Ellen Ioanes.

Julius Jones won't be executed, but faces life in prison

Kevin Wong/Getty Images

• Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) on Thursday commuted the sentence of Julius Jones, who was on death row for a 1999 murder that he has maintained he did not commit. The commutation came just hours before Jones was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection. [Washington Post / Kim Bellware]
• The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommended instead life in prison; Stitt commuted the sentence to exclude the possibility of parole, against the recommendation of the board. Had Stitt included the option for parole, Jones would have been eligible immediately, after spending 20 years in prison. [The Oklahoman / Carmen Forman]
• Jones has insisted on his innocence in the murder of Paul Howell, writing in a letter to the parole board, “I did not participate in any way in his murder; and the first time I saw him was on television when his death was reported.” In his 2002 trial, defense attorneys did not question family members who provided the alibi that Jones was eating dinner with them at the time. [NYT / Michael Levenson and Maria Cramer]
• A number of celebrities and political figures have become involved in the case, including Kim Kardashian West, who has previously advocated on behalf of incarcerated people. Jones has maintained that a high school acquaintance committed the murder and set Jones up to take the fall. [NBC / Minyvonne Burke]
• Jones’s execution was set to take place just after the state of Mississippi executed David Neal Cox for the murder of his estranged wife, Kim Kirk Cox in 2010. Cox, who also sexually assaulted his minor stepdaughter and held her and her younger brother captive as their mother died, said he was ”worthy of death,” abandoned further appeals, and refused legal representation leading up to his execution. [AP / Emily Wagster Pettus]
• Cox was the first inmate executed by Mississippi since 2012, and died by lethal injection of a three-drug cocktail, midazolam, vecuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. Mississippi, like other states, has had difficulty obtaining drugs for lethal injection that do not cause an excruciatingly painful death; starting in 2010, European drug manufacturers banned the export of drugs previously used in US lethal injections. [CNN / Chris Boyette]

Sudan anti-coup protestors killed by security forces

• At least 14 people have been killed by security forces in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, as anti-coup protests continue. Wednesday was the deadliest day thus far since a military coup took power and ousted the civilian prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, on October 25. [Guardian]
• That brings the death toll to at least 38 during the clashes over the coup, which was initiated by Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. This week, a civilian was supposed to take over the transitional Sovereign Council, which has been governing the country since the 2019 overthrow of dictator Omar al-Bashir. [BBC / Will Ross]
• Many protesters had been shot “in the head, neck, or torso,” according to a Sudanese doctor’s association, which also asserted that security forces had fired live rounds into crowds of protestors. The Sudanese Professionals Association, which helped bring about the protests that toppled al-Bashir, had called for an escalation after Burhan failed to hand over power. [Al-Jazeera]
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is presently in Kenya, and his trip to Africa has also coincided with a bombing in Uganda and escalation of tensions in Ethiopia. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee traveled to Khartoum to meet with both al-Burhan and Hamdok, who is under house arrest; Phee said on Twitter that she and Hamdok discussed “ways forward to restore Sudan’s democratic transition.” [NYT / Abdi Latif Dahir, Declan Walsh and Rick Gladstone]

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The FCC voted Thursday to require wireless carriers to soon allow texting to a three-digit number — 988 — to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. [The Verge / Jay Peters]

• Democrats in the House of Representatives may try again on Thursday to vote on their Build Back Better Act, a major social spending bill that moderates and progressives have quarreled over. [New York Times]
• French dictionary Le Robert has added gender-neutral pronoun, “iel,” which combines the French words for “he” and “she.” [Washington Post / Amy Chang]
• “QAnon shaman” Jacob Chansley sentenced to 41 months in prison on a felony count of obstructing an official proceeding before Congress. [NYT / Alan Feuer]
• Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi of the UN’s nuclear oversight body, the International Atomic Energy Agency, will head to Tehran to meet with Iranian officials on Tuesday. [Reuters]

“Shoot me, terrorists! God is watching.”

[Abdul Majid Bhat, a Kashmiri man whose younger brother, Mohammad Altaf Bhat, was killed by Indian security forces raiding a mall in Srinagar on Monday, as police held a gun to his chest during protests over the deadly raid.]

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