Felony Murder Elimination Project asks supporters and to help save Tremane Wood from the State of Oklahoma’s efforts to execute him later this month for a crime he did not commit. Wood, who is African American, was condemned to die by a nearly all-white jury for the murder of a young white man which his co-defendant confessed to carrying out.

On November 5th, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board will decide whether to grant mercy to Wood for a murder his brother confessed to in court as his family pleads for the state to stop his November 13th state-sponsored execution.

Wood’s co-defendant received a life-without-parole sentence for that murder, yet Wood is one of several people on Oklahoma’s death row sentenced to death for felony murder following a brief 6-day trial tainted by racial prejudice, ineffective contract defense counsel (who the State of Oklahoma paid a mere $10,000 to defend Mr. Wood in a capital case), and prosecutorial misconduct (including undisclosed benefits provided to the prosecution’s key witness).

Under Oklahoma’s felony murder law, anyone involved in a felony crime that leads to a death can be held responsible regardless of intent or level of involvement. The state first argued Wood murdered Ronnie Wipf at a hotel in Oklahoma City in 2002. He was sentenced to death, even though his brother Jake confessed to the murder. A year later, prosecutors argued Jake was the killer, and he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

During Woods’s trial, his family says he faced racial bias, prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective counsel. While the other three defendants in the murder case received attorneys trained in capital defense, Wood’s attorney Johnny Albert billed just two hours during his entire defense and never met his client before trial.

• Wood’s trial lawyer has admitted in a sworn statement that he was abusing alcohol while representing Woods, “drinking on a regular basis.” There is also evidence that the lawyer was addicted to cocaine while representing Woods. 
• Wood’s trial lawyer admitted that he “did not have the time to adequately represent Tremane,” “did very little to investigate and prepare Wood’s case for trial,” and “met with him on a very limited basis and only when we were in court.” 
• As a result of counsel’s failure to investigate or prepare, he presented no evidence in Wood’s defense and the entire death penalty trial lasted for just six days with the penalty phase beginning and ending in one afternoon. 
• Wood’s lawyer was paid just $10,000 total to defend Wood, an amount that would have equated to less than $1.00 per hour if he had done the work required to adequately defend a capital case. 
• By contrast, Wood’s brother, who admitted carrying out the killing, was represented by three experienced capital defense lawyers and two investigators with the Oklahoma Indigent Defense 2 System who successfully fought to defend him against the death penalty. That means the admitted killer was sentenced to life without parole while Wood was sentenced to death. 
• Wood was tried by a nearly all-white jury after prosecutors removed nearly every Black person from jury service, except one. 
• The only Black person on Wood’s jury has come forward to report feeling “under pressure” to vote for death by the majority-white members of the jury.
• A 2017 study found that, in Oklahoma, as a Black man on trial for the murder of a White victim, Wood was 2-3 times more likely to receive a death sentence based on race alone. 

You can help prevent this miscarriage of justice from going forward by contacting Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt and the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board through the Action Network —>>> Stop the Execution of Tremane Wood in Oklahoma

You can read more about Wood’s fight to stay alive in “His Brother Admitted To A Murder. He Is Set To Be Executed For It” from the Huffington Post.