Eleven death penalty cases were pending in Oklahoma County District Court when the new district attorney, Vicki Behenna, was sworn in in January 2023.
The death penalty option was dropped in seven cases and is still on the table, for now, in three cases. One double-murder case was dismissed all together. Here is a summary of the cases:
Roshaun Bernard Jones
Jones, 41, was accused of gunning down the manager of a Del City laundromat and a customer during a 2017 robbery. Prosecutors told the trial judge in August they were not going to seek the death penalty after all. They then dismissed the double-murder case in September days before trial, without telling police. Jones is now in prison for trafficking in illegal drugs in jail.
“I was going out of the country,” Behenna said. “I thought notification had been sent to the chief. It had not. And that’s my fault.”
Roshaun Jones is escorted by an Oklahoma County sheriff’s deputy on July 21, 2017, at the Oklahoma County Courthouse.
Ramon Pugh
Pugh, 50, was found guilty at a jury trial last year of murdering three men who had been drinking vodka and smoking marijuana with him at his Midwest City home in 2017. Prosecutors dropped the death penalty before trial. He was given three consecutive life sentences.
More: Executions in OK County are among the highest in the nation. The new DA may change that
Mario James Normore
Normore, 33, is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for going on a killing and robbery spree in 2017 that left four people dead. Prosecutors said the deal sparing him from the death penalty was made in 2023 “to satisfy the desire of the families for a conclusion.”
Gabriel Aguilar
Aguilar is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for stabbing a woman more than 70 times in 2019 in front of her children in her Oklahoma City apartment. Police were told the two had been in “an intimate relationship.”
Aguilar, 30, pleaded guilty in 2023 to first-degree murder and let a judge decide his punishment after prosecutors dropped the death penalty.
Rodney Staten
Staten, 53, is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for a fatal stabbing at an Oklahoma City inn in 2019. A jury in 2023 found him guilty of murdering his wife and assaulting her aunt. Prosecutors dropped the death penalty because he had an IQ score of 70.
Dave Tariq Daejuan Walker
Walker, 24, was accused of two 2019 fatal shootings. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in one case and 15 years in prison on the second case.
Prosecutors dropped the death penalty after he scored 82 on an IQ test and was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.
More: Oklahoma has carried out 15 executions since resuming them. Only Texas has more
Kendreen Jordan
Jordan, 30, is accused of beating and stabbing his wife to death in 2020 at their Oklahoma City apartment.
Derrick Brown
Brown, 36, is accused of stabbing his ex-girlfriend to death in 2020 in Oklahoma County and dumping her body in an abandoned house in Atoka County. He told a judge in a letter this summer that prosecutors have offered to drop the death penalty, “but I’m not a murderer.”
Josh Christian Brown
Brown, 39, is accused of killing his wife by engaging in a continuous physical attack over two days in Spencer in 2020. He also is accused of hurting three children in the home.
Devonta Lamar Williams
Williams, 31, was sentenced in January to life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to murdering his girlfriend and her uncle in Del City in 2021.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: What happened in 11 death penalty cases under new OK County DA