Tremane Wood, who is a black man, was condemned to die by a nearly all-white jury for the murder of a young white man he did not commit and which his co-defendant confessed to carrying out. Whereas Mr. Wood’s co-defendant received a life-without-parole sentence for that murder, Mr. 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).

In contrast to Mr. Wood’s co-defendant who was vigorously represented by 3 experienced public defenders and 2 investigators, Mr. Wood was represented at his capital trial in 2004 by a solo- practitioner who, in 2011, admitted in an affidavit that he abused alcohol while representing Mr. Wood, had no investigative assistance, and did little to prepare his case for trial. At the same time contract counsel represented Mr. Wood, he also represented two other Oklahoma capital defendants, James Fisher and Cary Littlejohn, both of whom were granted relief from their death sentences and/or released from prison because of contract counsel’s ineffective representation. Mr. Wood is the only one of the three who has not obtained relief from any court because of procedural technicalities. Procedural technicalities have also prevented state and federal appeals courts from considering compelling evidence about the racism, poverty, and abuse that pervaded Mr. Wood’s youth.

The 2017 bipartisan Report of the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission identified systemic failures like those present in Mr. Wood’s case as creating an unacceptable risk that the State of Oklahoma will execute individuals whose actions and whose lessened culpability do not place them among the worst offenders for whom capital punishment is supposed to be reserved. If Oklahoma executes Mr. Wood, that risk will become a reality.