The governor of Oklahoma grants a pardon to Julius Jones, who was to be executed this Thursday, and commutes the sentence to life in prison without parole

(CNN) – The governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, granted the pardon to Julius Jones, the prisoner sentenced to death who was to be executed this Thursday.

Stitt commuted Jones’s sentence to life in prison without parole, according to a decree released Thursday on the state secretary of state website.

Jones has been on death row for nearly 20 years in connection with the 1999 murder of Paul Howell. Jones says he is innocent, as are his family, lawyers and supporters. Howell’s family, however, remains convinced of Jones’ guilt.

CNN has reached out to Jones’ attorney for comment.

Who is Julius Jones and why are so many people following his case?

Jones, who is black, was sentenced to death after being convicted of the 1999 murder of Paul Howell during a carjacking. But Jones insists he is innocent, and he, his attorneys and advocates have raised a number of issues with his case.

According to his clemency petition, Jones and his attorneys say he has spent nearly two decades on death row for a crime he did not commit due to “fundamental flaws in the system charged with deciding” his guilt, including ineffective and inexperienced defense attorneys. , racial prejudice between his jury and the alleged misconduct of the prosecution.

Jones’s case gained renewed attention in 2018, when the ABC documentary series “The Last Defense” highlighted his case. Today, he counts celebrities like reality TV star Kim Kardashian among his followers, and more than 6 million people had signed a petition on Change.org asking Stitt to avoid execution due to questions surrounding his case.

His petition for clemency pointed to several problems with his case

Howell was killed in a carjacking on the night of July 28, 1999, when he, his adult sister and their daughters parked in their parents’ driveway, according to court documents. Howell’s sister, the documents say, described the attacker as a black man who she said was wearing jeans, a white T-shirt, a black cap and a red scarf over his face.

Jones, 19 at the time, was arrested a few days later after authorities found the murder weapon wrapped in a red scarf inside his family’s home. Jones was tried along with a co-defendant who was sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit robbery, according to online court records. The co-defendant testified against Jones, who was convicted and sentenced to death.

Jones’ clemency petition raised several controversial points in his case, one of them being his alibi: Jones’s family say he was home with them the night of the murder, according to the clemency petition. The jury was also not shown a photo of Jones, taken days before Howell’s murder, which according to the petition would have shown that it did not match the shooter’s description.

The red headscarf is another sticking point: Jones’s clemency petition cites several people who said his co-defendant, Christopher Jordan, admitted to killing Howell and hiding the gun and the handkerchief inside Jones’s home. (An attorney for Jordan told ABC News in September that his client denies having confessed to the crime.)

News in development

With input from Dakin Andone, Amir Vera, Justin Lear, Ashley Killough, and Carma Hassan