Urgent Action Outcome: Governor Rejects Clemency, Execution Proceeds

James Coddington, aged 50, was executed in Oklahoma on 25 August 2022 for the murder of a 73-year-old friend in 1997. The Governor rejected the state Pardon and Parole Board’s recommendation that he commute the death sentence.  

NO FURTHER ACTION IS REQUESTED. MANY THANKS TO ALL WHO SENT APPEALS.

In a statement from the Governor’s office said that “After thoroughly reviewing arguments and evidence presented by all sides of the case, Governor Kevin Stitt has denied the Pardon and Parole Board’s clemency recommendation for James Allen Coddington”. Family members of the murder victim, and the state Attorney General, had opposed clemency. One of James Coddington’s lawyers said that his legal team were “profoundly disheartened” by the Governor’s decision, saying that in recommending clemency, the Board had “acknowledged James’s sincere remorse and meaningful transformation during his years on death row”. 

This was the third execution in Oklahoma in 2022, and the 117th since 1976 when the US Supreme Court allowed executions to resume in the USA under new capital statutes. There have been 10 executions in the USA this year, bringing to 1,550 the total across the country since 1976.