**Emmanuel Littlejohn Executed in Oklahoma: 14th Under Current Governor**
Emmanuel Littlejohn, 52, was executed by lethal injection on Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary for the 1992 murder of convenience store owner Kenneth Meers during a robbery. The execution was carried out at 10:17 a.m. CDT, despite recommendations for clemency from the state’s parole board.
Kenneth Meers, 31, was shot dead in 1992 at Root-N-Scoot convenience in Oklahoma ( Image: Oklahoma Attorney General)
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, who has only granted clemency once during his six years in office, expressed his difficulty in overturning a jury’s decision, stating, “A jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death.” Littlejohn’s execution marks the 14th under Stitt’s administration, raising concerns about the governor’s stance on death penalty cases.
During the robbery of the Root-N-Scoot convenience store in June 1992, Meers was fatally shot. Littlejohn was tried alongside co-defendant Glenn Bethany, who was sentenced to life without parole. Littlejohn, who was only 20 at the time of the crime, maintained that he did not fire the fatal shot, although two teenage witnesses testified that he did.
In six years as governor, Stitt has granted clemency only once ( Image: Oklahoma Attorney General)
In a video statement to the Pardon and Parole Board, Littlejohn apologized to Meers’ family but denied responsibility for the shooting. His legal team argued that the case would likely not have resulted in a death sentence had it been prosecuted in a different era, pointing to the current standards for death penalty cases.
The Oklahoma appellate court denied a last-minute challenge to the constitutionality of the state’s lethal injection protocol just before Littlejohn’s execution. His execution, alongside a scheduled execution in Alabama on the same day, could mark a historical moment, representing the first time in decades that five death row inmates have been executed in the U.S. within one week.
As the nation approaches 1,600 executions since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, debates surrounding the ethical implications and application of capital punishment continue to intensify. .Vuong.
