McALESTER, Okla.—Oklahoma executed a man Thursday for his role in the 1992 shooting death of a convenience store owner after the governor rejected a recommendation from the state’s parole board to spare his life.
Emmanuel Littlejohn, 52, received a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary and was declared dead at 10:17 a.m. His execution came the state parole board recommended Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt spare his life. There was no announcement from the governor’s office ahead of the execution.
A state appellate court on Wednesday denied a last-minute legal challenge to the constitutionality of the state’s lethal injection method of execution. A similar appeal filed in federal court also rejected Thursday.
Littlejohn is the third Oklahoma inmate put to death this year and the 14th since the state resumed executions in 2021 after a more than six-year hiatus. If another execution set for Thursday evening in Alabama is carried out, it would mark the first time in decades that five death row inmates were put to death in the U.S. within one week.
