McALESTER — Oklahoma on Thursday carried out its 14th execution since lethal injections resumed three years ago after a long hiatus brought about by drug mix-ups and botched procedures.
Emmanuel Littlejohn , 52, was pronounced dead at 10:17 a.m. Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
In his last words, he told his mother and daughter that he loved them but expressed no remorse and did not repeat his claim of innocence.
"I'm OK," he said in tears, strapped to the gurney. "Everything's going to be OK."
He was one of four men executed in the United States in a week's time. The other executions were in South Carolina, Texas and Missouri. A fifth man was set to be executed in Alabama Thursday evening.
Littlejohn was executed for the fatal shooting of Oklahoma City convenience store owner Kenneth Meers in 1992. Littlejohn acknowledged he was one of two robbers at the store but always denied he was the shooter.
A jury in 1994 concluded he was the triggerman based on the testimony of two witnesses inside the store. Two witnesses outside the store said the shooter was the taller man, a description that fit his accomplice.
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The uncertainties in the case and his innocence claim resulted in a strong public showing of support in the days leading up to the execution. His spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeff Hood, said 12,202 people signed online petitions calling on Gov. Kevin Stitt to show mercy,
The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 in August to recommend clemency . Stitt could have commuted Littlejohn's punishment to life in prison without the possibility of parole but didn't.
"These decisions are very difficult and I do not make them lightly," Stitt said in a news release Thursday morning. "Mr. Littlejohn murdered an innocent man 32 years ago while robbing a convenience store. A jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death. The decision was upheld by multiple judges.
"As a law and order governor, I have a hard time unilaterally overturning that decision. Today, justice for this life lost was carried out. I hope this brings closure to the families impacted by this murder."
Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who witnessed the execution, said he "prays that today brings some measure of peace to the Meers family."
What happened in Emmanuel Littlejohn's case?
Littlejohn and his accomplice, Glenn Bethany, got away with only a few hundred dollars from the Root-N-Scoot convenience store in south Oklahoma City on June 19, 1992. Littlejohn was 20 years old at the time and had been recently released from prison.
Meers, 31, was killed by a single shot to the face as he charged at the robbers with a broom. He bled to death, saying, "Oh, God, please help me," according to the attorney general's submission to the parole board.
At his clemency hearing, Littlejohn said, "I know that you have heard from a variety of people who think I deserve to die. They don't know me. They were not there. I know that I didn't kill Mr. Meers. I've admitted to my part. I committed a robbery that had devastating consequences. But, I repeat, I did not kill Mr. Meers."
Bethany was tried first, in 1993. His jury chose life in prison without the possibility of parole after finding him guilty of first-degree murder.
Littlejohn's first jury voted for the death penalty in 1994 after finding him guilty of first-degree murder. A second jury in 2000 also voted for the death penalty at a resentencing trial. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ordered the resentencing because of improper testimony from a jailhouse snitch.
More: Rev. Jeff Hood prays for the condemned at their executions. His first time was in Oklahoma
The attorney general and his assistants told the parole board Littlejohn and Bethany robbed the store to pay back a drug dealer who went by the nickname "Big E." The two had been selling drugs for "Big E" but owed him because Bethany "was more interested in using the drugs than selling them," they said.
Littlejohn's attorneys sought to portray the death verdicts in his robbery-gone-wrong case as an "outlier." They told the parole board that from 2009 to 2020 none of the death sentences handed down in Oklahoma were for a murder associated with a robbery.
The first inmate executed in Oklahoma after a hiatus of more than six years threw up from the gurney. Since that Oct. 28, 2021, execution, Oklahoma has carried out a string of lethal injections without major issues.
LIttlejohn's breathing appeared to be labored for about five minutes at the start of the procedure. His spiritual adviser, Hood, read to him from the Bible at his feet and made the sign of the cross over and over. "He was snoring for a long time, much longer than I have experienced in other executions," Hood said. "I felt like there was some anticipation in the room that this should be happening faster."
Steven Harpe, the executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, said, "There wasn't anything that was abnormal in terms of our process or what we experienced during the execution."
He said other states now "reach out to us on this on a regular basis."
The inmate's mother, Ceily Mason, of Wichita, Kansas, sobbed quietly and clutched a gold cross necklace as she watched from the first row of the witness room. "Oh, God," she said early in the procedure.
"They killed my son," she said at the end. "Kansas wouldn't do this."
For his last meal Wednesday evening, Littlejohn had a max meat pizza, two slices of cheesecake and a Coke, according to the Department of Corrections.
Oklahoma's next death row inmate to be executed is Kevin Ray Underwood, 44, who suffocated a 10-year-old Purcell girl in 2006 because of his cannibalistic fantasies. His execution date has not been scheduled yet but will likely take place in mid-December or early January.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma death row inmate Emmanuel Littlejohn executed
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