An Oklahoma inmate used his final moments to forgive the state’s governor for denying him clemency before he was executed by lethal injection Thursday.
James Coddington, 50, was executed at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, despite a recommendation by the state Board of Pardons and Paroles that his life be spared.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt refused to commute Coddington’s life sentence without parole and refused to grant him clemency.
Coddington, who was convicted of murder in 1997, said he forgave Stitt in his final words as he was strapped to a gurney inside the execution chamber.
“To all my family and friends, lawyers, everyone who has been around me and loved me, thank you,” Coddington said. “The governor. Stitt, I don’t blame you and I forgive you.”
Demonstrators held signs outside the governor’s mansion in protest of the execution. AP
He then raised his head and gave a final thumbs up to his lawyer Emma Rolls, who wept silently in the witness room.
Coddington was injected with a lethal drug and pronounced dead at 10:16 a.m., becoming the fifth Oklahoma inmate killed since the state resumed executions last year.
He had been convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of 73-year-old Albert Hale.
At the age of 24, Coddington killed Hale with a hammer when the septuagenarian refused to give him money to feed his cocaine addiction.
After killing Hale, he committed at least six armed robberies at gas stations and convenience stores in Oklahoma City.
Despite the protester’s best efforts, James Coddington was killed last Thursday. AP
Coddington apologized to Hale’s family and said he was a different man today after years of sobriety in emotional testimony at his clemency hearing this month before the five-member Pardon and Parole Board of oklahoma
Albert Hale’s son, Mitch Hale, watched Coddington being killed from the witness stand Thursday and said he did not believe he was truly remorseful.
“He showed today that he wasn’t genuine. He never apologized,” Hale said. “He didn’t raise my father.”
Coddington did not mention his victim during his final words.
“I forgive him, but that doesn’t absolve him of the consequences of his actions,” Hale added.
Kevin Stitt, Governor of Oklahoma. The governor denied James Coddington’s request for clemency. Getty Images
During his leniency hearing, Coddington’s lawyer said his client was doomed to a life of addiction from an early age when his father filled his bottles with beer and whiskey.
Coddington’s death sentence was initially overturned on appeal, but he was sentenced to death a second time in 2008.
Prosecutors from the state attorney general’s office said Coddington’s crimes warranted his execution.
“When the full circumstances of the murder, related robberies and Mr. Coddington’s extensive history of violence are considered, one thing is clear: death is the only just punishment for him,” they wrote in the Board of Pardons and Parole.
Oklahoma halted executions in September 2015 after receiving the wrong lethal drug from suppliers that did not match state protocols for execution procedures. After an investigation into the change, the state resumed executions last year.
With post cables