Despite a recommendation by the state’s Pardon and Parole Board that his life be spared, Oklahoma killed a man on Thursday for a crime that occurred in 1997.
At the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, James Coddington, 50, got a fatal injection and was declared dead at 10:16 a.m. Coddington’s appeal for mercy was denied by Gov. Kevin Stitt, who also refused to reduce his sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release. Since the state started carrying out executions again last year, Coddington was the sixth prisoner to be executed in Oklahoma.
Coddington was found guilty and given the death penalty for using a hammer to kill 73-year-old Albert Hale.
The prosecution claims that Coddington, who was 24 at the time, lost his cool when Hale refused to give him cash to purchase cocaine.
An emotional Coddington, now 50, apologised to Hale’s family at a clemency hearing last month before the state’s five-member Pardon and Parole Board and said he was a different man now.
Coddington assured the board, “I’m clean, I know God, and I’m not… I’m not a nasty killer.” “OK, if this ends with my being executed today.”
The parole board was persuaded not to recommend clemency, but Mitch Hale, Albert Hale’s son, said last week he was happy Stitt chose to carry out the execution.
At the age of 64, Hale commented, “Our family can put this behind us after 25 years.” No one enjoys seeing someone pass away, but Coddington made this decision while knowing the risks; he gambled and lost.
Coddington’s counsel, Emma Rolls, told the panel that Coddington’s years of drug and alcohol addiction, which started when he was a baby and his father put beer and whiskey in his baby bottles, had left him damaged.
Despite Hale’s family’s objections, the panel recommended clemency by a vote of 3-2. Republican Stitt disagreed with the parole board’s recommendation.
Coddington received two death sentences for the murder of Hale, the second coming in 2008 after the first one was reversed on appeal.
Coddington carried out at least six armed robberies at gas stations and convenience shops all throughout Oklahoma City after murdering Hale.
“Death is the only just punishment for him,” state attorney general’s office prosecutors wrote in a letter to the Pardon and Parole Board.
“When the full circumstances of the murder, related robberies, and extensive history of violence on Mr. Coddington’s part are considered, one thing is clear: death is the only just punishment for him.”
When prison authorities discovered they had been given the incorrect fatal medication in September 2015, the state had already stopped carrying out executions.
Executions in the state were halted when it was discovered that the incorrect medication had been used to kill a prisoner.