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On November 13, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt granted clemency to 46-year-old Tremane Wood, seconds before his scheduled execution. Wood had already spent over 20 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, even though his brother, Jake, confessed to committing the murder for which Tremane was incarcerated. Jake died by suicide in prison in 2019.
Jake’s defense lawyers secured him a life sentence. Tremane’s lawyer, barely clocking hours and under the influence of cocaine, got him sent to death row. His excuse? “I’m sorry. You got me at a bad time.”
Wood’s mother, a domestic violence survivor, couldn’t bear to watch her son’s execution. Wood’s own two sons, one of whom drove 18 hours to attend, were there to support their father at the end.
Still, after decades of incarceration, the decision to cancel the execution mere seconds before it was supposed to begin was “cruel and inhumane,” Wood’s son Brendan explained. “It’s torture.”
The spectacle of capital punishment, even when not carried out, simply had to be prioritized, torturing Tremane Wood, his loved ones, and witnesses selected by dystopian lottery. What does that say about a system that is cruel, even in its administration of “mercy”?