A death row inmate in Oklahoma was told moments before his scheduled execution that he’ll as a substitute get to live out his years behind bars.
Tremane Wood, 46, was on account of receive a lethal injection at Oklahoma State Penitentiary at 10am local time on Thursday for murdering a travelling teenage farmer during a motel robbery on Recent 12 months’s Day 2002.
He was sat in his cell waiting to be taken to the chamber but the decision never got here.
At 10.01am, the state governor, Kevin Stitt, announced his decision to grant clemency.
‘After a radical review of the facts and prayerful consideration, I actually have chosen to simply accept the Pardon and Parole Board’s advice to commute Tremane Wood’s sentence to life without parole,’ Stitt said in a press release.
The governor said the move meant Wood’s punishment would now ‘reflect’ that of his brother, Zjaiton ‘Jake’ Wood, who also took part within the murder but was sentenced only to life without parole.
It followed a campaign to grant clemency for Tremane, who has all the time denied killing Ronnie Wipf, 19, who was from a Montana colony of pacifist Christians often known as Hutterites.
Zjaiton, who died by suicide in 2019, confessed to the killing but insisted his brother didn’t participate within the crime. Witnesses contradicted his claims.
Tremane didn’t testify at his trial, but later admitted to participating within the robbery – though he blamed his brother for Ronnie’s death.
At their trials, jurors heard the pair had two female accomplices pretend to be prostitutes and lure Ronnie and his friend, fellow Hutterite Arnold Kleinsasser, to a motel in Oklahoma City.
The brothers were waiting within the motel wearing ski masks and trench coatsand attempted to rob the teenagers, who were travelling within the state to earn money from harvest work.
A scuffle ensued during which a gun went off and Ronnie was fatally stabbed in the guts, while Arnold managed to flee.
Tremane’s current attorney said he arrived with the knife, while Zjaiton had the gun, and that ‘Jake, sooner or later on this struggle, assumed control of the knife’.
Oklahoma’s state attorneys disputed this version of events, telling a Supreme Court hearing on the case that it ‘defies common sense’.
The prosecution didn’t should prove Wood stabbed Ronnie since the law means anyone participating in a violent felony that result’s in someone’s death will be charged with felony murder.
The campaign to get Tremane off death row was supported by each the survivor, Arnold, and Ronnie’s mother.
‘The Lord will care for punishment. That’s not for us to make your mind up,’ Barbara Wipf told HuffPost earlier this month.
Arnold, who says he received an apology letter from Tremane last yr, added: ‘Being a Christian, I could be totally against it.
‘I have a look at it from a perspective of how much I’ve been forgiven from God. And that’s the identical forgiveness I’m called to increase.’
Oklahoma’s attorney general, Gentner Drummond, said the state respected their beliefs but said Tremane continues to be a danger to the general public, accusing him of orchestrating violent crimes behind bars.
At a clemency hearing for the 46-year-old, the state provided texts and pictures which it claimed showed Tremane was selling drugs and ordering hits on other prisoners.
Drummond argued: ‘Clemency is just not a right; it’s an act of mercy considered only for many who, at minimum, display real remorse and moral transformation. Tremane Wood has done neither.
‘If ever there was a case that display society’s interests can diverge from the preferences of victims, it is that this one,’
Appearing via video-link, Tremane told the hearing: ‘I’m not a killer, I never was, and I never have been.’
The hearing saw the state’s Pardon and Parole Board vote 3-2 in favour of recommending clemency.
The buck was then passed to the US Supreme Court, which at around 9amannounced it was refusing to remain the execution, leaving the ultimate decision as much as Governor Stitt.
Stitt’s decision an hour later was a rare one: within the five times the board has beneficial clemency since execution was reintroduced in 2021, he has agreed just once.
The move was welcomed by each Democrats and Republican state leaders, in addition to Oklahoma’s archbishop and anti-death penalty campaigners.
It was criticised by the attorneys who prosecuted the Wood brothers and Drummond, who said his office will ‘proceed working to be certain that Tremane Wood stays behind bars’.
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