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| Photo Credit: AP. |
U.S. state of Oklahoma Thursday executed a man over a 1997 hammer killing of an elderly man. The execution went ahead not withstanding a recommendation from the state’s Pardon and Parole Board that the 50-year-old convicted criminal be pardoned.
James Coddington was given a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and was pronounced dead at 10:16 a.m., The Associated Press reports. The state Gov. Kevin Stitt refused to commute Coddington’s sentence to life in prison without parole and also rejected the petition for clemency.
“To all my family and friends, lawyers, everyone who’s been around me and loved me, thank you,” Coddington said while strapped to a gurney inside the death chamber, The Associated Press reported. “Gov. Stitt, I don’t blame you and I forgive you.”
The first drug midazolam was administered, leaving Coddington’s breathing labored with his chest hitching several times, according to The Associated Press. A doctor on the execution team declared him unconscious at 10:08 a.m., and Coddington snored inside the chamber.
Who is James Coddington?
Codington was tried and convicted for beating 73-year-old Albert Hale to death with a hammer. Coddington who was 24 at the time was enraged when Hale refused to give him money to buy cocaine, prosecutors say.
Coddington apologized to Hale’s family and said he was a different man today during a clemency hearing this month before the state’s five-member Pardon and Parole Board.
Coddington was twice sentenced to death for Hale’s killing, the second time in 2008 after his initial sentence was overturned on appeal, according to The Associated Press.
The Associated Press reported that after killing Hale, Coddington committed at least six armed robberies at gas stations and convenience stores across Oklahoma City.
“When the full circumstances of the murder, related robberies, and extensive history of violence on Mr. Coddington’s part are considered, one thing is clear: death is the only just punishment for him,” prosecutors in the state attorney general’s office wrote to the Pardon and Parole Board, according to The Associated Press.