By Fox23.com News Staff
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA. — Clemency has been denied for death row inmate Raymond Johnson.
The board voted unanimously, 5-0, to deny Johnson clemency. He is set to be executed May 14.
Johnson was sentenced to death for the 2007 double murder of Brooke Whitaker and her seven-month-old daughter, Kya.
Johnson was out on parole for a 1995 manslaughter conviction when he beat Whitaker and poured gasoline on her and her daughter and set them on fire.
“Raymond Johnson is a cruel murderer who inflicted unimaginable pain and suffering on his victims,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statement. “His heinous actions shattered a family and forced three young children to grow up without their mother or baby sister. There will finally be justice for Brooke and Kya when the death sentence is carried out on May 14.”
Dr. Elizabeth Overman, Chair of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, sent in a statement regarding the denial that reads:
“The Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty extends sincere condolences to the family of Brooke and Kya Whitaker. We know that murder, whether at the hands of individuals or the state, resonates far beyond the confines of the event. However, the state carries out murder as public policy and Raymond Johnson’s plea for clemency comes in a questionable context. A small state of 4.4 million people – Oklahoma has the highest execution rate in the country. The decision of the Pardon and Parole today reaffirms that Oklahoma will remain an outlier, a seriously mortifying distinction for the state and the people of Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, the unreliable death penalty system makes this possible. The system has significant issues such as wrongful convictions, a string of botched executions, and illegal procurement of the killing drugs. This occurs amidst deep-rooted issues riddled with racial bias, and all too often bad legal representation. Unaddressed are the documented illegal activities carried out by prosecutors to secure a conviction. This also comes at a time that the 2017 bipartisan Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission recommended, after closely and meticulously examining the Oklahoma capital execution process, 46 areas that merit critical concern. To date the reforms have not been implemented. The state legislature refuses to take them up while the state continues to practice homicide, killing people for killing people. To quote Andy Lester, Co-Chair of the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission and a former U.S. Judge, “the capital punishment system in Oklahoma is broken. It does not work as it should.” With this frame of reference, the Pardon and Parole board made a bad decision today and the pain and suffering of Brooke’s family falls into the abyss of unreliable state policy that is incapable of truly rendering justice. “Executing Raymond Johnson does not bring Brooke and Kya back.” The death penalty in Oklahoma is a miscarriage that denies closure while guaranteeing heart break and misery.”
