Clemency denied to death row inmate

sion. “Justice will be served when the death penalty is carried out July 20.”

The hearing lasted approximately two and half hours, starting at 9 a.m.

Mark Henrikson presented Cannon’s defense. He presented points of self defense, mental health and an ineffective defense team in the original trial.

PTSD on the brain and how it affects a person’s physiological and psychological processes. She also said it is a treatable disease and many who have been treated have very successful results.

The state’s team, Assistant Attorneys General Josua Fanelli and Jennifer Crabb, presented the case against clemency.

Clark’s death, Cannon stated Clark had initiated a fight, attacking him with a kitchen knife as he tried to leave her apartment. He said he had taken the knife from her and blindly swung it four times. The state brought forward pictures of the crime scene and Clark’s body when it was found two days after her death. She had been stabbed in the throat three times and once in the chest.

Wednesday morning, in a vote of 3-2, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board denied Jemaine Cannon his request for clemency.

Board members Calvin Prince and Edward Konieczny voted yes. Richard Miller, Richard Smotherman and Cathy Stocker voted no. Cannon has been on death row since 1996 after he was convicted of the first-degree murder of Sharonda Clark on Feb. 3, 1995. He will receive the lethal injection on July 20.

“I am pleased the Pardon and Parole Board denied clemency for the monster who brutally murdered Sharonda Clark and deprived her two young children of their mother,” said Attorney General Gentner Drummond in an official press release following the deci-

“He always has had an affirmative defense, that is, that he killed Miss Clark only in self-defense,” Henikson said. “More importantly, we will be showing that Mr. Cannon’s trial team did not present even the rough outline of self-defense in this case, and although it is not necessary for you to be convinced today that this event occurred exactly as we claim, it should give you great pause to permit an execution of a citizen whose basic defense was never presented to the jury.”

Georgia Wynkoff presented evidence for Cannon’s mental health.

Cannon was diagnosed with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in 1995. Growing up, he had been physically and emotionally abused by his mother, grandmother and his mother’s boyfriends.

Wynkoff discussed the effects of

“Jemaine Cannon has a history of abusing women long before he ever murdered Sharonda Clark,” Drummond said.

Prior to the murder of Clark, Cannon was convicted of the attempted murder of Awanna Simpkins and the assault of Pam Salzman. Salzam, along with Yeh-Sehn White, Clark’s oldest daughter, testified for the state.

Salzman described Cannon as an intelligent person who is a mastermind of evil and said he made her life a living hell. She told the story of the day she woke up to Cannon in her home, where he attacked and choked her.

Salzman also read a letter written by her mother, who had called her when Cannon was in her home, realized something was wrong and notified police.

Previously in his testimony about news.ed@ocolly.com

Cannon fled to Flint, Michigan. Despite his claims of self-defense and the many defensive wounds on Clark’s body, the police who arrested him in Michigan noticed no defensive wounds on him, according to police reports. There were also abrasions found on Clark’s neck, signaling she had been choked.

Rev. Don Heath, the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty chair, opposed the decision to deny Cannon clemency in a press release. He said people who have grown up in stable middle-class homes cannot understand the trauma endured by Cannon and the effect it has on their life.

“For the State to kill him is not justice, it is cruelty,” Heath said.