Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommends clemency for inmate Julius Jones, attorney says
CBSN
The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole board has recommend clemency for death row inmate Julius Jones, attorneys for Jones said Monday. Jones, who was convicted in 1999 at the age of 19 for the murder of Paul Howell, has maintained that he was innocent and race played a role in his conviction.
On October 27, Jones spoke publicly for the first time in over two decades at the hearing, according to CBS affiliate News 9. The families of Jones and Howell were both there, in a hearing that lasted over 3 hours.
"I believe in death penalty cases there should be no doubt, and put simply, I have doubts in this case," the board's chairman said in September when he recommended Jones' sentence be commuted to life in prison rather than execution.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.