Stop the Execution of John Grant in Oklahoma

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt & the Pardon and Parole Board

John Marion Grant is scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma on October 28, 2021 for the 1998 murder of Gay Carter.

[See below for petition text to be submitted.]

BACKGROUND:
Grant's execution, if it goes forward, will be Oklahoma's first in more than 5 years - the state's previous execution being in 2015. Mr. Grant has taken full responsibility for the crime, has apologized to the victim’s family, and remains a deeply remorseful man who is deserving of grace and mercy from Oklahoma, the State that abused its duty to him when he was a mere child in need of guidance and rehabilitation, entrusted to its care.

Mr. Grant’s jurors were not informed that when he was a child of 12 years old – a product of poverty and neglect – he stole clothes and shoes for younger siblings, eventually being sent to a notorious Oklahoma juvenile facility and subjected to years of horrifying abuse there. At the time of Mr. Grant’s stay, Oklahoma’s juvenile system was so corrupt and abusive that national reporters undertook an extensive investigation that resulted in an award-winning exposé titled Oklahoma Shame. Unfortunately, Mr. Grant was never offered any services to address the abuse and abandonment he sustained at the hands of the State. This crucial mitigating evidence was not investigated or presented for the jury’s consideration at sentencing.

John Grant received a sentence of death after an unfair trial at which crucial facts about his tragic background of institutional childhood abuse were not presented to his jury. Respected experts, who have since reviewed the whole of Mr. Grant’s trial, have concluded that Mr. Grant received “one of the most incompetently assembled and presented” death penalty sentencing defenses ever seen. Judges on both state and federal review offered passionate dissents because of the extraordinary ineffectiveness of Mr. Grant’s trial counsel and subsequent decisions allowing his death sentence to stand. One of Mr. Grant’s trial attorneys has since been disbarred for conduct that was ongoing at the time of Mr. Grant’s trial.In scheduling an execution after so many years without one, Oklahoma makes itself an outlier in its use of the death penalty. The majority of other states are on a downward trend of executions, and increasingly, states are abolishing the practice altogether, including the southern state of Virginia, which repealed its death penalty law earlier this year.


Please sign the petition asking Governor Stitt and the Pardon and Parole Board to do everything within their power to ensure Jones does not face execution and to seek a path to clemency in the case.

Sponsored by

To: Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt & the Pardon and Parole Board
From: [Your Name]

We are writing to you regarding John Grant, who is on death row in Oklahoma for the 1998 murder of Gay Carter and who is scheduled to be executed on October 28, 2021.

John Grant received a sentence of death after an unfair trial at which crucial facts about his tragic background of institutional childhood abuse were not presented to his jury. Mr. Grant has taken full responsibility for the crime, has apologized to the victim’s family, and remains a deeply remorseful man who is deserving of grace and mercy from Oklahoma, the State that abused its duty to him when he was a mere child in need of guidance and rehabilitation, entrusted to its care. ​

Mr. Grant’s jurors were not informed that when he was a child of 12 years old – a product of poverty and neglect – he stole clothes and shoes for younger siblings, eventually being sent to a notorious Oklahoma juvenile facility and subjected to years of horrifying abuse there.

Grant's execution, if it goes forward, will be Oklahoma's first in more than 5 years - making Oklahoma an outlier in its use of the death penalty. The majority of other states are on a downward trend of executions, and increasingly, states are abolishing the practice altogether, including the southern state of Virginia, which repealed its death penalty law earlier this year.

We, the undersigned, ask that you do everything within your power to ensure Grant does not face execution and to seek a path to clemency in the case.

Thank you for time and attention to this urgent and serious matter.