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Melissa Harris-Perry: On Thursday, Oklahoma governor, Kevin Stitt, finally made a decision in the case of death row inmate Julius Jones.
Female Speaker: Just four hours before Julius Jones was set to be executed, Governor Kevin Stitt announced he was taking the inmate off death row.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Governor's Stitt's decision spared Julius's life and announcing the decision just a few hours before the scheduled execution meant that Jones was forced to endure hours of Oklahoma's execution protocol. He was given an inexpensive last meal. He was strip-searched, all calls and visits were ended. He was moved to a room just feet away from the execution chamber.
Reverend Cece Jones-Davis: The governor took quite a while to render his decision.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Here on The Takeaway, we talked with Reverend Cece Jones-Davis, one of the advocates who's been leading the effort to spare Julius's life.
Reverend Cece Jones-Davis: We didn't hear from the governor until three hours prior to the execution. That was a very, very grueling 48 hours. While we're grateful for the outcome, the governor was cruel of him to take as long as he did. The anguish that Julius's family went through for the last 48 hours I would not wish on any human being on the face of the earth. It was cruel. It was cruel.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Perhaps Stitt was still making up his mind. Perhaps this was a psychological ploy meant to evoke gratitude despite the fact that Stitt's halt of the execution came with a caveat. Julius Jones must now serve life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Reverend Cece Jones-Davis: Julius Jones deserve better than this. Julius deserved for the governor to accept the recommendation of hi Pardon and Parole Board that gave him the same recommendation twice to grant Julius a commutation of life with the possibility of parole. He gave him life without parole. Julius doesn't deserve to spend the rest of his life in prison because Julius is an innocent man.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Still, where there is life, there is hope and Julius Jones remains alive if not free. Then just about 24 hours later, a Wisconsin jury returned a verdict in the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse.
Female Speaker 2: A jury in Wisconsin today found the 18-year-old from Illinois not guilty on all charges. Rittenhouse shot and killed two protesters and wounded a third in August of 2020.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Not guilty on all five charges, including first degree reckless homicide and first degree intentional homicide. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. We begin today's episode of The Takeaway with a question. What is justice and do we have a legal system capable of delivering it? Joining me now is Paul Butler, the Albert Brooke professor in law at Georgetown University Law Center and a legal analyst on MSNBC. He's also the author of Chokehold: Policing Black Men. Paul, welcome back to the show.
Paul Butler: Hey, Melissa. It's great to be back on The Takeaway.
Melissa Harris-Perry: We just talked last week but I really wanted to speak with you again given these two outcomes. Can we start with Julius Jones? Are there any more pathways for Jones, any additional legal remedies given the governor's decision that he must now serve life without the possibility of parole?
Paul Butler: Under the law, Mr. Jones has little hope unfortunately. In theory, he could bring a case in federal court, what's called a habeas corpus proceeding, but the supreme court has made it very difficult for people on death row to win those claims. As you noticed, the Oklahoma state board of clemency recommended that Mr. Jones receive life with the possibility of parole and the governor rejected it.
The power of clemency is a prerogative that the governor has. It comes from the divine right of kings in English law. This governor has exercised that in the same random and capricious way a king might. The result is that Mr. Jones is an innocent man who was on death row for 20 years. Now, he's an innocent man who is sentenced to life without parole. All that means is that he won't die in Oklahoma's execution chamber. He will just die in Oklahoma state prison.
Melissa Harris-Perry: When you talk about a sense of capriciousness or injustice, it's clear many people feel similarly about the Rittenhouse verdict. In this case, the assailant, someone who we know committed the killings but is understood by the law now as having not committed a crime in the context of those killings. Can you help us, again, to understand the legal reasons even if not the justice reasons that this happened?
Paul Butler: The verdict does not mean that the jurors bought the boy scout image of Rittenhouse that the defense presented that he was just a medic there to render aid to anybody who was injured at this Black Lives Matter protest. The verdict means that the jury had reasonable doubt that Mr. Rittenhouse was guilty. They weren't 95% certain but I can't imagine they're happy, these jurors who actually live in Kenosha, about an immature and reckless 17-year-old bringing a semi-assault rifle to patrol their streets.
The jurors may be troubled that other people who want to take the law in their own hands may view the verdict as an invitation.
Melissa Harris-Perry: When you talk about it in that way, 17 years old with this assault-style rifle. Now, this was a decision-- The judge made a decision to dismiss the gun possession charge. I know that there were some who thought that this was potentially strategic on the part of ensuring that if they couldn't go for anything else maybe they'd go for that but that would be a a smaller charge and that it had something to do with the actual length of the barrel of the gun that young people are allowed to have.
For example, the rifles if they're going to go hunting, for example. I'm just wondering about that gun possession charge and if it maybe indicates we need some reform on those sets of laws.
Paul Butler: It seems like the law in Wisconsin was just poorly written and the lawmakers might actually have intended to outlaw Mr. Rittenhouse possessing the gun that he had but the law just didn't capture what their intent was. That was a relatively minor charge given that Mr. Rittenhouse was also charged with intentionally killing two people and blowing the arm off of another person.
This case happened during a Black Lives Matter's protest about the shooting of a Black man. There were a number of counter protesters. The scene was chaotic and violent, but as the prosecutor said in his closing argument, the only person who killed anyone was Kyle Rittenhouse.
Melissa Harris-Perry: I'm interested in this question of justice versus law. It seems that as a matter of simply the law, that the jury did not do the wrong thing. They could have made a different choice but that there is a reading that makes sense for this verdict. I think for many, including the families of the victims who were killed, this doesn't seem like a just outcome. How do we square justice with legal outcomes?
Paul Butler: Criminal trials are poor instruments of social change. If we look at the verdict and the Derek Chauvin trial, he is being brought to justice for murdering George Floyd, but that's different from reforming the police. I understand the concerns if, for example, Julius Jones had Kyle Rittenhouse's kind of money for a defense fund, Mr. Jones probably would not have been found guilty.
There are lots of concerns about the role of anti-Black bias, white privilege, and money in our criminal legal system. In fact, Kyle Rittenhouse beat his case because he put on the best defense that money can buy. He got a $2 million legal defense fund that allowed his lawyers before the trial to stage these two separate practice jury trials, one in which Rittenhouse took the stand and one in which he didn't. The fake jurors responded positively to the trial where he took the stand. That's why he took the stand at the real trial, which is probably the most important reason why he walked. It's really important to understand, Melissa, that written house got all this money because he had a legal defense fund that was cheer led by people like Donald Trump and Matt Gaetz.
Melissa Harris-Perry: This point, we talked a great deal about race in the American legal system, but this point about resources feels to me so critical and maybe under-discussed. Even as you say the words legal defense fund, I recognize it's a very different kind of legal defense fund, but just thinking about the transition and power happening at the NAACP legal defense fund as the extraordinary Sherrilyn Ifill steps aside and her deputy, the extraordinary Janai Nelson, takes over in that role.
I'm wondering if there's a way to think about how to make resources more equitable, in the same way that LDF brought resources to the civil rights fight. Is there a way to maybe think about maybe bringing more resources to Gideon's Army, to public defenders or in some way, beginning to try to level that resource playing field.
Paul Butler: It certainly would advance equal justice under the law, if every accused person had the same kinds of resources that Rittenhouse had. At the same time, we can't discount the power of his whiteness. It's impossible to imagine the right embracing the cause of a young Black man who brought a semi-automatic rifle to let's say, a Stop the Steel rally and ended up killing two people and blowing the arm off of another.
Rittenhouse, for his supporters, the reason he got all of his money is because he's white. His whiteness is a crucial part of his appeal.
Melissa Harris-Perry: As you look out on the framework of vigilantism in the post-Rittenhouse moment, should we be concerned about more Kyle Rittenhouses?
Paul Butler: Whether he deserves it or wants it, Rittenhouse is now the poster child for reactionary white men who want to take the law into their own hands, who want to bring assault weapons to Black Lives Matter protests, and who think that violence is a legitimate form of political discourse. This verdict makes every American less safe.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Paul Butler, law professor at Georgetown University, and author of Chokehold: Policing Black Men. Thank you for joining us today.
Paul Butler: It's always a pleasure, Melissa.
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