MCALESTER, Okla. — Oklahoma’s high prosecutor wished to verify a person who was by no means confirmed to have killed anybody could be executed by the state. And so, on a Tuesday afternoon in July, he despatched a secret message to a decide, asking for some assist. “I have an active investigation issue that I wish to address with you,” Gentner Drummond, the state’s legal professional common, started his e-mail.
The recipient was Gary Lumpkin, the highest decide on Oklahoma’s Legal Court docket of Appeals. The topic line misspelled the identify of the person on loss of life row, Tremane Wooden.
It was a tough case for Drummond, who had cultivated a repute as a good arbiter of capital punishment. The loss of life penalty is supposedly reserved for the “worst-of-the-worst” form of criminals, however Tremane was by no means a very compelling instance. In 2002, Tremane, his older brother and two girls have been charged with first-degree homicide for killing Ronnie Wipf throughout a botched theft. Wipf died from a single stab wound, however below the state’s so-called felony homicide statute, prosecutors didn’t must show who killed him in an effort to safe homicide convictions — solely that they every participated within the theft that led to the loss of life.
Tremane denied stabbing Wipf. He was represented at trial by a lawyer scuffling with drug habit who billed nearly no work on the case, and Tremane was sentenced to loss of life. His older brother, who testified that he had killed Wipf, had sturdy authorized illustration and obtained a life sentence. The result appeared perverse on its face: The one that admitted to the homicide obtained a extra lenient sentence than his little brother, who swore he had by no means killed anybody.
Even a number of the individuals who helped convict Tremane got here to really feel that one thing had gone unsuitable. The jury foreperson, the one Black member of the jury, has stated she felt pressured into voting for loss of life and would have held out for all times if she had had extra details about the case. The state’s star witness, who can also be the mom of Tremane’s eldest son, advised HuffPost she doesn’t need Tremane to die. So did the surviving sufferer of the theft, in addition to the mom of the person who was killed.
Seemingly, the particular person most intent on killing Tremane is the state’s legal professional common.
Drummond had beforehand requested the Oklahoma Court docket of Legal Appeals (OCCA) to set Tremane’s execution for Sept. 11, which might have required the state to carry a clemency listening to forward of time. At that listening to, Tremane and his attorneys would have the possibility to make the case for mercy and ask the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board to advocate that the governor spare his life. Perhaps the manifest unfairness of the sentences would seize nationwide sympathies and stress the state to again down from the execution.
So Drummond — who’s operating to turn into the state’s governor as a tough-on-crime legal professional common — got here up with a plan that might sabotage Tremane’s probabilities of clemency. To tug it off, he wished assist from Lumpkin, the decide who was overseeing the case. He defined within the e-mail, which was not too long ago unsealed in a court docket submitting, what he wanted after which signed off: “Thank you in advance for your indulgence in this request.”
The legal professional common’s try and enlist assist from the decide overseeing Tremane’s case to clear the way in which for his execution is a serious blow in a case that was already emblematic of the systemic unfairness in how the legal justice system determines who deserves to be killed by the state. As HuffPost chronicled intimately in a earlier function, Tremane’s case is marked by allegations that his loss of life sentence was the results of each his severely impaired trial lawyer and prosecutors who performed soiled. Regardless of the widespread perception that the prolonged appeals course of in capital instances ensures that constitutional violations at trial might be rectified earlier than the execution date, Tremane has been denied aid at each flip.
Within the ultimate days forward of Tremane’s scheduled execution — together with as not too long ago as this week — extra particulars have emerged exposing how Oklahoma’s prosecutors and judges have coordinated in ways in which have undermined Tremane’s ultimate possibilities at a significant evaluate of his case.
Drummond’s press secretary Leslie Berger declined to reply to a listing of questions on his dealing with of Tremane’s case, citing an “investigation” into Tremane, though she declined to specify who’s conducting the investigation. Requested if Tremane match the outline of the “worst-of-the-worst” criminals the loss of life penalty is supposedly reserved for, Berger wrote, he “was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to death.” She asserted that he had a good trial.
Lumpkin didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Because it stands, Tremane faces an execution date of Nov. 13. On Thursday, he requested the Supreme Court docket to keep his execution and evaluate his allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. He has been locked in solitary confinement since June, the place he isn’t allowed contact visits. Until the jail reverses course, he might by no means hug his family members once more.
Tremane’s earliest reminiscences are of his father, a cop, beating his mom. When Tremane and his two older brothers tried to guard their mother, their dad beat them, too.
“He has beaten me to the point where you couldn’t even tell what I looked like, knocked my teeth out, broke my nose, broke my bones, and then wouldn’t let me even get any medical help,” Tremane’s mother, Linda Wooden, beforehand advised HuffPost. Tremane’s father, who died in 2012, admitted in court docket to whipping his sons “like a normal father would,” pushing Linda one time and handcuffing her to a automotive one other time. However he denied that he was abusive.
Tremane idolized his older brother Zjaiton “Jake” Wooden, their mom advised a social employee in 1994. “He would die for Jake,” she stated.
“I’ve never seen anyone be that loyal to a person,” their eldest brother, Andre Wooden, stated in an interview final 12 months. “Tremane would follow Jake to the end of the Earth. Tremane just loved his brother. And Jake loved Tremane. And there was nothing that could break that. Nothing.”
Following Jake’s lead, Tremane joined a gang and fell into the juvenile detention system as a younger teen. In late 2001, Jake returned dwelling after spending seven years in jail. By then, Tremane, 22, had two children and a job at a pizza restaurant in Oklahoma Metropolis. He was centered on staying out of bother.
On New Yr’s Eve, Tremane was at a home get together along with his cousins when Jake confirmed up and advised Tremane to return with him. Desirous to spend time along with his brother after years aside, Tremane agreed. They went to a brewery with Jake’s girlfriend, Lanita Bateman, and Tremane’s ex-girlfriend, Brandy Warden.
There, the ladies have been approached by two out-of-towners named Ronnie Wipf and Arnold Kleinsasser, who have been passing by Oklahoma on their means again to work on a harvest crew. Ronnie advised the 4 of them return to a motel room. Brandy and Lanita didn’t need to go, they might later say, however felt stress from Jake and Tremane to get cash from the unsuspecting males.
On the motel room, the group negotiated a worth of $210 in trade for intercourse. Lanita discreetly gave Jake the motel room quantity, hoping she and Brandy might escape with out having intercourse and get picked up by the brothers. However earlier than they bought that far, two masked males in lengthy trench coats and leather-based gloves knocked on the door. When Ronnie opened the door, the lads burst into the room, and the ladies ran out.
A battle ensued. Arnold managed to flee, however Ronnie was fatally stabbed. Inside days, Tremane, Jake, Brandy and Lanita have been all arrested and charged with first-degree felony-murder, theft with firearms, and conspiracy to commit theft with a harmful weapon. Prosecutors sought prolonged jail sentences for the ladies and loss of life sentences for each brothers.
The younger girls confronted an not possible determination: assist ship individuals they cared for deeply to loss of life row or danger spending the remainder of their lives in jail. Lanita, 19, who had solely been relationship Jake for 2 months, declined to cooperate with the state and was sentenced to life in jail, plus 101 years. Brandy, 20, who had recognized Tremane since they have been children, agreed to testify for the state in trade for a decreased sentence. She had three younger kids, together with a son with Tremane, to get dwelling to.
Battle-of-interest restrictions prevented the Oklahoma Indigent Protection System from representing each Wooden brothers, so the court docket assigned Tremane’s case to personal legal professional Johnny Albert. As soon as a revered legal protection legal professional, Albert struggled with drug habit by the point he took on Tremane’s case and would later quickly lose his legislation license attributable to allegations of shopper neglect. He billed simply two hours of labor on the case outdoors of court docket and by no means visited his shopper in jail. He did not current proof that Tremane was not the killer and that his abusive childhood warranted leniency at sentencing.
Watching the trial unfold was torture, Andre stated. “I’m sitting there, looking at my mom, going, ‘This is the fucking lawyer?’” Andre beforehand advised HuffPost. “I wanted to get up and say, ‘Can I represent my brother? Because this asshole has no clue what he’s doing.’ You can just tell the guy was out of it. I mean, I’ve seen fucked-up people. This lawyer was fucked-up.”
With Albert failing to mount a significant protection for Tremane, Jake made the extremely uncommon determination to testify in his brother’s trial forward of his personal. He testified that he stabbed Ronnie and that Tremane wasn’t with him on the night time of the theft. He didn’t need his brother to die for one thing he didn’t do, he stated.
Elements of Jake’s testimony lacked credibility. Brandy had already positioned Tremane on the motel theft. However there’s proof that Jake was telling the reality that he — not Tremane — killed Ronnie. Earlier than Lanita was sentenced, a parole officer ready a report documenting her recollection of the crime. Within the report, she describes listening to Jake say that “he thought he killed a guy” after they bought dwelling from the motel. This report was out there on the time of Tremane’s trial, however Albert by no means introduced it to jurors. Had Albert requested, Lanita would have been keen to testify in help of Tremane, she wrote in a 2011 declaration.
Lanita doesn’t remorse not testifying for the state, regardless that she might spend the remainder of her life in jail. “I can be free no matter where my body is. They can’t lock up my spirit,” she stated in a current interview. “I would not help kill someone.” Tremane’s looming execution has made her really feel “helpless,” she stated. “I’m devastated. I’m dying inside.”
“Trying to save somebody and you can’t do anything but sit and wait and hope that people make the right decisions — it’s painful,” Lanita stated.
Though the state didn’t must show Tremane killed Ronnie to ensure that jurors to convict, prosecutors portrayed him as an unrepentant killer whereas making the case that he deserved the final word punishment.
“This person stuck a big knife into the chest of a 19-year-old man. Stuck it in there five inches. And never said to one person, ‘I’m sorry about that,’” Oklahoma County Assistant District Lawyer Fern Smith stated.
“What kind of person is that? Somebody different from you and me. And that fact … is the reason why he deserves the death penalty,” Smith stated. “How can you kill, intentionally, knowingly kill another human being and not be sorry about it?”
Tremane was convicted and sentenced to loss of life.
In Jake’s trial the next 12 months, prosecutors flipped their principle of the crime and portrayed Jake because the killer. They launched his testimony from Tremane’s trial and letters allegedly written by Jake to Brandy and Smith, the prosecutor, bragging concerning the killing and threatening extra violence.
“You have evidence from the defendant’s mouth that … that he did in fact murder Ronnie Wipf,” Smith stated. “You also have some letters where he, himself, said he murdered Ronnie Wipf. Not only did he murder Ronnie Wipf, he liked it. He enjoyed it.”
Initially, Jake wished to affix his brother on loss of life row. However his attorneys labored onerous to win his belief and persuade him to take part in a vigorous protection. Jurors discovered Jake responsible of felony homicide — however this time, they voted to let him dwell. Jake was sentenced to life in jail with out the potential of parole.
Two years after Tremane’s trial, Albert was arrested after repeatedly failing to indicate up in court docket for one more case. The lawyer admitted he was scuffling with substance abuse and was launched on bond to start drug and alcohol remedy. The Oklahoma Bar Affiliation charged him with 11 counts {of professional} misconduct based mostly on complaints of neglect from his former purchasers. Albert admitted to the allegations, and his legislation license was suspended for 14 months.
Two of Albert’s former purchasers in separate instances have had their loss of life sentences thrown out on the premise of ineffective help of counsel. Earlier than he died in 2018, Albert admitted in two separate sworn statements to doing a poor job on Tremane’s case. He additionally wrote Tremane an apology be aware, stating, “I’m sorry for everything in the past. You got me at a bad time and its not your fault.” (He, too, misspelled Tremane’s identify.) However Tremane’s requests for a brand new trial had repeatedly been denied by appellate courts, largely for procedural technicalities.
The trial decide in Tremane’s case rejected his bid for a brand new trial, discovering that Albert’s actions have been a part of the trial technique. Even after Albert stated that wasn’t the case, the Oklahoma Court docket of Legal Appeals denied Tremane’s petition for post-conviction aid, discovering that Albert’s “client neglect, abuse of drugs and alcohol and emotional instability” appeared to have began after Tremane’s trial had ended.
Years later, a number of individuals who have been a part of a gang known as the Playboy Gangsta Crips supplied Tremane’s authorized staff with sworn affidavits detailing how Albert represented members of the gang in trade for medication. The previous purchasers described seeing Albert drink and do medication frequently earlier than and all through the time frame he represented Tremane.
However that also wasn’t sufficient for the court docket. Introduced with this proof, the OCCA once more denied Tremane’s petition, stating it was “identical” to his earlier declare of ineffective help of counsel and that he ought to have introduced this proof when he first filed for aid.
“I’m not asking to go home,” Tremane stated in an interview final 12 months. “I just want a fair trial with a competent lawyer.”
In 2019, shortly after Tremane turned eligible for execution, Jake died by suicide in his cell. Tremane might by no means make sense of how his brother, the strongest particular person he knew, might kill himself. Some members of his household nonetheless doubt the reason for his loss of life. However spending months in solitary confinement himself, Tremane understands how his brother misplaced the need to dwell, he stated after I visited him in August. “I see what the isolation does to your mind.”
The day earlier than the go to, Tremane’s mother advised me that he has a powerful mindset — however that he was drained. He saved preventing to dwell, he advised her, as a result of he nervous about what would occur to her if he died.
“I’ve tried to play that scenario in my head a million times, and I can’t,” Linda stated in an interview. “When I think about him dying, I can’t breathe. I still grieve my son Jake every day because losing your child is not something you ever get over. I wouldn’t wish it on the person I hate most in the world. But to lose two sons, I don’t know. I don’t know how people go on,” she stated by tears.
“I can’t tell him, ‘Son, if you die, don’t worry, I’ll be alright.’ Because I won’t. I won’t ever be alright,” she stated.
Linda has by no means met Ronnie’s mom, Barbara Wipf, however she suspects Barbara by no means recovered from dropping her son. “My heart aches for her. And I know there’s nothing I could ever say or ever do that could bring her any peace.”
After Ronnie’s loss of life, Barbara fell right into a deep despair, she stated. It by no means went away, however with the assistance of treatment, she discovered a approach to cope. “Sometimes all you can do is get it out of the system,” Barbara stated in an interview, the lingering ache nonetheless audible in her tender voice. “You cry and cry and cry. And then, you feel a little better.”
Years after Ronnie’s loss of life, Barbara’s daughter, her solely different little one, died unexpectedly. “I guess God doesn’t give you too much to bear. He helps you carry everything. We have to believe that there is a God,” she stated.
When Barbara sees Ronnie’s mates getting married and having children, she thinks about what a great dad he would’ve been. She requested me questions on Tremane and his household. If she resented that Tremane bought to have kids and grandchildren, and her son didn’t, she didn’t say so. If something, she sounded unhappy that Tremane didn’t get to be with them. She advised me I might inform Linda that she misplaced two kids, too.
Tremane wrote Barbara and her husband a letter final 12 months apologizing for his position of their son’s loss of life. “He wrote me how sorry he is, which I believe, because my religion tells me he wrote the truth,” Barbara stated, referring to her Hutterite religion. “I think he should feel sorry.”
However she and her husband don’t consider within the loss of life penalty, and she or he doesn’t need Tremane to die. “They should let him live,” she stated. “I don’t think they should execute him.”
“This will not bring [Ronnie] back,” Barbara continued. “It’s sad, and it will stay sad.”
“This will not bring him back … It’s sad, and it will stay sad.”
– Barbara Wipf about her son, Ronnie Wipf
Earlier this 12 months, Tremane thought he may lastly get an opportunity at a brand new trial.
He had filed his fifth software for postconviction aid, this time arguing that prosecutors lied concerning the incentives supplied to Brandy in trade for her testimony at trial.
The OCCA took the uncommon step of ordering the trial court docket to carry an evidentiary listening to to research the allegations. When Tremane heard the information, he had a panic assault.
“I’m used to getting bad news and I know how to deal with that,” he stated within the August interview. “I didn’t know what to do with the good news. It’s scary to get your hopes up.”
All through the trial, prosecutors repeatedly advised jurors that Brandy, their star witness, would serve 45 years in jail. The concept she could be imprisoned into her 60s doubtless boosted her credibility with jurors as a result of it advised she wasn’t gaining a lot by cooperating with the state. “We always felt like we could argue that to the jury. Well, she’s getting life, too, you know?” former Oklahoma County Assistant District Lawyer George Burnett stated in a procedural interview with the Workplace of the Lawyer Basic forward of the evidentiary listening to.
Actually, Brandy’s sentence was later modified to 35 years, in trade for her testifying towards her co-defendants — and with “good time” credit score, she was launched after 12 years. That launch date was solely potential, Tremane’s attorneys stated, due to essential phrases of her deal that weren’t disclosed to jurors.
The listening to, which happened over a number of days in April, yielded explosive revelations.
At first, Burnett testified that the prosecution’s plea settlement with Brandy represented the total extent of their deal. Federal public defender Amanda Bass Castro Alves, considered one of Tremane’s present attorneys, confronted Burnett with proof that his plea settlement with one other witness for the prosecution didn’t mirror the truth that the prosecutors had dismissed and downgraded the witness’ pending felonies after Tremane was sentenced to loss of life.
Burnett then testified that the total scope of the state’s settlement with Brandy was really documented in a “memorandum,” not within the plea settlement. After studying that neither attorneys for Tremane nor the state had seen the memorandum, the decide obtained a duplicate from Brandy’s case file on the Oklahoma County Public Defender’s workplace. It clearly confirmed, opposite to prosecutors’ claims at Tremane’s trial, that Brandy would obtain a sentence of 35 years in trade for testifying towards her co-defendants.
Oklahoma County District Court docket
Requested why Burnett repeatedly advised jurors that Brandy would spend 45 years in jail, he testified he “made a mistake, probably.”
“Never underestimate my — my ability to say something stupid to a jury,” Burnett stated.
On the time of Tremane’s trial, Brandy was already serving a deferred felony sentence for an unrelated crime that could possibly be dismissed if she efficiently accomplished probation. After she was charged with felony homicide, a probation violation, probation officers filed a report to maneuver ahead together with her deferred sentence. However the district legal professional in that county opted to “hold off,” he wrote in a be aware on the report.
Had Brandy’s deferred felony sentence moved ahead, she wouldn’t even have been eligible for a sentence modification from 45 to 35 years, Bass Castro Alves wrote in a court docket submitting.
Not solely did this association secretly cut back her sentence, nevertheless it additionally allowed prosecutors to emphasise Brandy’s lack of a felony document to jurors. “The prosecutors’ suppression of their full agreement with Warden undermined [Tremane’s] defense and misled the jury by depriving it of information critical to jurors’ assessment of Warden’s truthfulness, credibility, and motivations for testifying to the story she told the jury,” Bass Castro Alves wrote.
“Never underestimate my — my ability to say something stupid to a jury.”
– George Burnett, former Oklahoma County assistant district legal professional
Brandy wasn’t concerned in discussions across the specifics of her plea deal, she stated in an interview. She believed she was agreeing to a deal of 45 years, with the chance for evaluate one 12 months after she was sentenced. Her lawyer advised her this was the one approach to get dwelling to her children. “It was the first time I felt like I was betraying him. I loved my kids with everything, and I had to choose,” she stated.
Brandy met Tremane when she was about 10 years outdated, and so they dated on and off as youngsters. She liked Tremane, however got here to worry Jake, who used intimidation and violence to get his means. When Brandy was about 16, Jake caught a gun in her mouth and threatened to kill her after she disobeyed his order to remain in the home, she stated in an interview. On the time of the trial, she was mad at Tremane for not standing as much as his brother, however she has since come to know how a lot management Jake exercised over him.
The months after the crime have been a nightmarish haze. The cops kicked within the door to her sister’s dwelling whereas Brandy was serving to her toddler wipe up after going to the toilet. She begged the officers to let every of her children hug her whereas she sat handcuffed on the sofa. As soon as she was in jail, her father was arrested for an unrelated crime, leaving solely her sister to look after her children. Jail employees put her on suicide watch and prescribed her a excessive dose of trazodone.
“I just felt like a zombie,” she stated.
Prosecutors have been threatening to ship her to jail for the remainder of her life until she cooperated with the state. Jake was sending her threats. She didn’t need to assist ship Tremane to loss of life row, however she additionally felt like he didn’t care about what he had put her and her children by.
“I do understand now that he did care. I understand that he regrets it, and I think he wishes he could have told his brother no.”
“It was the first time I felt like I was betraying him. I loved my kids with everything, and I had to choose.”
– Brandy Warden, mom of Tremane’s eldest son
No matter anger Tremane might have felt towards Brandy has dissipated, he beforehand advised HuffPost. “I always have some kind of love for her. We’ve been through a lot,” he stated. “I can’t be mad at her for being in a position she never should have been in. That’s on me.”
The invention of the key plea memorandum felt vindicating for Tremane. Lastly, he believed, there was clear proof that the state hadn’t performed by the principles. The courts hadn’t cared that Tremane’s lawyer was so badly impaired by habit that he barely introduced a protection for his shopper — however absolutely they might see that this warranted a brand new trial.
“I was so impressed with Amanda,” he stated of his lawyer. “I thought we had won. I thought we were going to get a new trial.”
There have been causes to really feel hopeful. Drummond, the legal professional common, pushed to sluggish the tempo of executions shortly after coming into workplace in 2023. Then, in an unprecedented transfer, he requested the Supreme Court docket to halt the execution of Richard Glossip and evaluate the prisoner’s innocence declare. The Supreme Court docket vacated Glossip’s loss of life sentence in February, a surprising consequence for a person who had survived 9 execution dates. The high-profile debacle of Glossip’s case prompted a number of Republican lawmakers in deep-red Oklahoma to return out in help of an execution moratorium.
To Tremane, it appeared just like the individuals in cost have been lastly coming to see a number of the flaws within the system. On the very least, it appeared like Drummond was keen to confess when the state had gotten it unsuitable. (Drummond has since flip-flopped on Glossip’s case: After agreeing to a plan for Glossip’s launch if his conviction was vacated, Drummond is retrying Glossip for first-degree homicide.)
After the evidentiary listening to, District Decide Susan Stallings had 30 days to submit her write-up of her findings. However the decide didn’t write her personal findings. As an alternative, she signed and filed the state’s model of occasions almost verbatim, which asserted that Tremane had did not show the existence of a secret deal between the state and Brandy — and that even when such a deal existed, it wouldn’t have modified the end result of his trial.
Stallings, the decide, had beforehand credited Fern Smith, the lead prosecutor in Tremane’s trial, with guiding her profession when she labored within the district legal professional’s workplace proper after legislation faculty. For all of the discuss of reform, issues have been nonetheless very a lot the identical.
Stallings didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The next month, Drummond requested the OCCA to schedule Tremane’s execution for Sept. 11, 2025.
In current weeks, court docket proceedings in Glossip’s case have uncovered extra particulars about Stallings’ relationship to Smith. On Friday, Stallings turned the third decide to recuse herself from Glossip’s retrial after Smith — who additionally prosecuted Glossip’s trial — testified that she and Stallings had traveled to Las Vegas, Spain and England collectively, in keeping with a lawyer within the courtroom. Stallings testified in September that she had traveled to Spain with Smith within the ’90s, however didn’t point out the opposite two journeys.
Glossip’s staff additionally uncovered a current e-mail trade between Stallings and Smith that confirmed the 2 celebrating the state’s argument in Tremane’s case, which Stallings was overseeing.
“I thought you would like to see the order (unfiled version),” Stallings wrote on Might 7, across the time she filed her findings, which almost identically matched the state’s proposed findings.
“Thank you so much!! Amazing!! I don’t know when I have seen a more thorough analysis and well-reasoned opinion,” Smith wrote of the findings, which cleared her of misconduct.
“Which I can’t take credit for. It’s the proposed Findings from the AG’s office,” admitted the decide, who was imagined to be an neutral arbiter between Tremane and the state. “They did do an outstanding job.”
When Tremane arrived on the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in 2004, loss of life row prisoners have been held on H-unit, a constellation of windowless cement cells. They spent 22 to 24 hours per day of their cells and have been solely allowed “no-contact visits,” separated from their family members by a thick layer of plexiglass. Being imprisoned on H-unit was like being “buried alive,” one prisoner advised the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma.
Below the specter of litigation from the ACLU-OK, the corrections division agreed to maneuver loss of life row prisoners to A-unit in 2019, which got here with small quality-of-life enhancements. Most significantly to Tremane, they have been allowed weekly contact visits. For the primary time since his arrest, Tremane was in a position to hug his mother. When his first granddaughter was born, he was in a position to cradle her in his arms, a second he by no means thought he’d dwell to expertise.
However by the summer season, even these temporary, joyful moments could be snatched away from Tremane.
Across the time that Drummond requested the Sept. 11 execution date, jail officers discovered contraband telephones in Tremane’s cell.
Contraband cell telephones are a felony, however they’re additionally ubiquitous in almost each U.S. jail — actually because guards sneak them in and promote them to individuals determined for a tie to the surface world. The Oklahoma Division of Corrections stated final month that it had seized greater than 4,000 contraband telephones in 2025 — roughly one for each seven individuals in its custody. As a result of contraband telephones are so widespread, guards usually look the opposite means or hand down gentle punishments after they see one.
Contraband telephones are a problem that’s being “aggressively addressed at our facilities by the agency’s investment in new contraband detection practices and technology, and nationally by the federal government through legal authorization for jamming/signal interference,” Kay Thompson, public relations chief for Oklahoma’s Division of Corrections, stated in an e-mail. Punishment contains necessary revocation of credit towards early launch and necessary degree demotion, which impacts a prisoner’s pay and entry to privileges like telephones, televisions and recreation. There may be additionally the optionally available punishment of disciplinary segregation.
However for Tremane, getting caught with cell telephones proved devastating.
As punishment, he was moved again to H-unit, the place he’s allowed a single, one-hour no-contact go to per week and has restricted entry to a cellphone. These restrictions are in place longer than he’s anticipated to dwell — which means he might by no means get the chance to embrace his mother, his brother, his girlfriend, his sons, his nieces and nephews, or his grandkids once more.
When social employee Jorja Leap visited Tremane on July 2 in preparation for his clemency listening to, she was alarmed by his obvious deterioration since their final go to in November. Throughout their prior go to, Tremane acknowledged he is perhaps going through imminent execution, “but he was hopeful and positive about whatever amount of time he might be alive,” Leap wrote in a report. However in July, he “was in despair and cried throughout the three hours we spent together.” He advised her he had acquired sufficient tablets to overdose and that he had tried to make a noose to hold himself.
Whereas Tremane was considering methods to finish his personal life, Drummond was at work making an attempt to make sure the state would get the possibility to kill him. With Tremane’s clemency listening to developing, the contraband cell telephones introduced the proper alternative to make the case that he wasn’t a rehabilitated household man — however an unrepentant rule-breaker, undeserving of mercy.
On July 15, Drummond emailed Lumpkin, the decide overseeing Tremane’s case, to secretly notify him concerning the contraband cell telephones. He advised, with out proof, that Tremane had used the telephones to promote medication, order a “hit” on one other prisoner and talk along with his public defender and a county decide’s clerk. (In a subsequent e-mail, Drummond clarified that the general public defender Tremane had contacted was not a part of his present authorized staff. The lawyer, who represented Tremane years in the past, has since resigned from the general public defender’s workplace.)
Drummond had taken the bizarre step of referring the cellphone incident to state legislation enforcement officers, and he wished the decide to quietly postpone Tremane’s execution to provide the state extra time to construct its case earlier than his clemency listening to.
At first, Lumpkin appeared keen to oblige. He and the opposite judges on the OCCA deliberate to fulfill the next week to debate execution dates, the decide advised the legal professional common. “Is that timing OK or is this something that will need attention prior to that time? Please let me know,” Lumpkin emailed Drummond.
Drummond responded that the timing labored for him and thanked the decide.
The American Bar Affiliation advises each judges and attorneys towards “ex parte communications,” or communication between a decisionmaker and an get together with out the opposite events’ data. That is meant to make sure equity within the judicial course of and forestall one aspect from gaining preferential remedy from the decide.
The night after Drummond’s request, Lumpkin despatched a follow-up, noticeably extra formal, e-mail. “I need to clarify that the Court cannot take any action or make any decisions based on proffered ex parte communications,” Lumpkin wrote. “The only matters the Court can consider are those matters properly filed before the Court.”
However the legal professional common didn’t need to formally request the delay. “Unfortunately, my office making any filing — even under seal — on this matter will likely tip off Mr. Wood as to nature of the investigation,” Drummond wrote. In different phrases, he didn’t need Tremane to have the possibility to arrange a protection associated to the cellphone allegations. “We would rather have a September 11 execution date than compromise the investigation through providing Mr. Wood notice of the investigation,” Drummond wrote.
Oklahoma’s Code of Judicial Conduct requires a decide who inadvertently receives an ex parte communication to “promptly” notify the opposite events to the case and supply them with an opportunity to reply. Lumpkin waited two weeks to inform Tremane and his attorneys concerning the communications and a further 9 days to supply them with the precise emails, which they later succeeded in getting unsealed.
When Tremane’s attorneys learn the emails between Drummond and Lumpkin, they realized why Tremane was being punished so harshly for the cell telephones, Bass Castro Alves stated in an interview.
“It was shocking to read that Attorney General Drummond prejudiced the court against Tremane while that same court was deciding whether Tremane deserved a new trial, and that Attorney General Drummond also enlisted the court in his effort to portray Tremane as a public safety threat to undermine his case for clemency without tipping us off.”
The state has not charged Tremane with any crimes in relation to the contraband telephones, which have been first found in Might. Bass Castro Alves requested Drummond in August and September to supply her staff with all proof supporting his allegations that Tremane dedicated legal acts whereas on loss of life row, in addition to entry to the telephones and the data saved on them for unbiased forensic evaluation. With out this proof, “we have been hamstrung in our ability to independently investigate these allegations or to challenge them,” she wrote in her request to Drummond.
The legal professional common declined to show over the proof, stating that as a result of his workplace had not charged Tremane with against the law, he was not entitled to discovery.
Tremane’s attorneys filed motions to recuse Lumpkin from Tremane’s case and to sanction Drummond. The OCCA denied each requests. Days later, Lumpkin wrote the OCCA’s determination upholding Stallings’ findings.
Tremane and his attorneys didn’t get a glimpse of how Drummond was ready to make use of the telephones to argue that Tremane deserved to die till Oct. 22 — the deadline for either side to submit written supplies associated to the Nov. 5 clemency listening to.
In a sequence of bullet-pointed lists, Drummond included greater than 100 factors of proof recovered from the telephones that allegedly confirmed Tremane partaking in legal exercise or misconduct whereas on loss of life row. A lot of the allegations concerned promoting or utilizing medication. Essentially the most severe allegation is that Tremane directed a pal incarcerated in a distinct jail to rearrange for one more prisoner to be beat up. Within the screenshots of the textual content messages included within the state’s clemency packet, Tremane described the goal as somebody who killed his feminine cousin.
“Wood’s actions on death row in recent years, including distributing drugs and having another inmate viciously beaten, prove that death is the only way to ensure the safety of Oklahomans,” Drummond wrote in a press launch, asserting his opposition to Tremane’s clemency request.
Tremane admitted to having contraband telephones and, at instances, “losing his way behind the walls,” he stated. “Over the 23 years I’ve been locked up, I’ve done things that I’m not proud of and have made bad choices that I regret,” he continued. “But I’m not a killer.”
He additionally stated that the telephones supplied a approach to talk along with his family members as a lot as potential throughout his restricted remaining time. “If you had months to live,” he stated, “Wouldn’t you take the risk and break the rules so that you could text your mom ‘Good morning’ every day?”
It’s a paradox of the clemency course of that distinctive rehabilitation is a requirement for mercy. But loss of life row prisoners are usually disadvantaged of rehabilitative applications and held in torturous situations. What’s the purpose of rehabilitating an individual whose punishment is loss of life?
Since 2019, some individuals on loss of life row have been “afforded the opportunity to work on the units or in food service in a limited capacity,” Thompson wrote, noting that such selections are made “based on behavior” of the prisoners. “Program referrals for all inmates are based upon an objective assessment tool, availability and security level. All inmates have access to religious services.”
Tremane spent most of his incarceration in solitary confinement, which is acknowledged by the United Nations as a type of torture. His jail data present that he repeatedly requested for jobs and programming, however was denied due to his loss of life sentence. “No programs available on death row,” a 2006 document exhibits. In 2008: “No programs assessed due to inmate serving death sentence.” 2010: “Offender has no assessed program needs due to his sentence.”
Final 12 months, Tremane organized a petition for loss of life row prisoners asking management for a counseling group the place they might have a “safe and confidential space where [sic] inmates can openly express and process their grief and receive guidance from trained professionals.” Their request was ignored. Of the 15 males who signed the petition, three have been executed.
Tremane Wooden’s Clemency Software
Thompson stated DOC is just not conscious of a petition however confirmed that Tremane despatched a letter to employees requesting a grief counseling group. In response, employees bought a workbook titled “Hardcore Grief Recovery” and supplied it to each particular person sentenced to loss of life, Thompson wrote.
“Attorney General Drummond is pushing for Tremane’s execution, not because Tremane killed anyone (he hasn’t, and the actual killer has confessed), not because the death penalty reflects the sentence the jury actually wanted for Tremane (it doesn’t, and the jury foreperson has said so before the Oklahoma legislature), not because he’s the most culpable (he’s not, the actual killer confessed and received a life sentence),” Bass Castro Alves wrote in an e-mail.
“Rather, Attorney General Drummond is pushing for Tremane to be executed because Tremane has at times lost his way in prison, not unlike many of the thousands of incarcerated people discarded by the system, and made choices that he has come to regret. I’m hopeful that the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board will see the Attorney General’s tactics for what they are: A massive distraction from the powerful evidence that Tremane’s death sentence is unjustifiable and that his life is worth saving.”
After I visited Tremane final 12 months, we spent about 5 hours seated on reverse sides of a protracted desk within the jail’s visitation room. He took duty for taking part within the theft that led to Ronnie’s loss of life and expressed regret for the ache it induced the victims, Brandy, Lanita and his household. He described the methods he had grown because the time of the crime and spoke with satisfaction concerning the help he offers to his household. He was fiercely protecting of his mom, an unwavering supply of affection.
By August, he had visibly declined, his face gaunt and his eyes fast to fill with tears. Since he was solely allowed one go to per week, he needed to forfeit considered one of his few remaining visits along with his family members in an effort to converse with me. Separated by bars and plexiglass, we needed to lean in so shut to listen to each other by the holes within the wall that I might really feel his breath.
There was no clock seen within the no-contact visitation space. With out warning, a guard approached the again door of the small holding cell Tremane was in. The hour was up. As we stumbled by hurried goodbyes, I stared on the comparatively wholesome 45-year-old in entrance of me who, if all goes in keeping with the federal government’s plan, will quickly be lifeless. I watched as he crouched down, his palms behind his again, to stay his wrists by the bean port for the guard to cuff.
In my effort to bear witness to each second I might, I used to be left with a ultimate reminiscence of Tremane that isn’t dissimilar to the picture he advised me he wished to keep away from: his physique able of give up to the individuals who would kill him.
Tremane has advised his family and friends he doesn’t need them within the room if he’s executed. He doesn’t need them to see him strapped to a gurney with a needle in his arm each time they shut their eyes. He doesn’t need that picture to be their final reminiscence of him.
Most people closest to him say they couldn’t watch. “I can’t consciously sit there and watch someone kill my brother and there be nothing I can do about it,” Andre stated. “I would feel like I’m failing my little brother because I’m his big brother. How am I not protecting him?”
“And knowing that no matter how much I yell and scream and bash against the window and say, ‘It’s not right,’ there’s nothing that’s going to stop it. I can’t. I can’t.”
Brenden Wooden, Brandy’s son with Tremane, constructed a relationship along with his mother by letters, cellphone calls and visits throughout her incarceration. However the family who raised him blocked him from attending to know Tremane. When Brandy returned dwelling, she took Brenden to go to Tremane in order that the boy might type his personal opinion about his dad.
“I was tearing up, trying to keep my composure. It tore me up inside knowing that half the stuff I heard about my dad this whole time was wrong,” Brenden beforehand advised HuffPost of his first go to with Tremane, which occurred when he was a young person. “A bunch of lies. They made him out to be a monster. Acting like someone can’t make a mistake and be forgiven.”
Regardless of Tremane’s effort to protect his household from the reminiscence of his execution, Brenden is adamant that he bear witness to the killing. An energetic obligation member of the army, he needed to request permission for emergency go away to journey to Oklahoma.
“If I were on my deathbed, I wouldn’t want the only thing for me to see is white walls. I would like to know that family is there,” Brenden stated in an interview. “This is my way of showing it doesn’t matter what anybody else says about you, it’s not going to change my opinion of you. I am here for you.”
Brenden continued: “I haven’t had nearly enough time to actually have a full relationship with him. This could be possibly the last thing I could do.”
Brandy plans to attend outdoors the jail within the car parking zone to drive her son dwelling. “I know that it’s real, but I keep telling myself, ‘this isn’t real,’ because I don’t want it to happen,” Brandy stated in August, tears streaming down her face. “I know that he will always have a place in my heart and I am so very thankful that we are blessed to have such a special piece of him — our son Brenden.”
“I can’t consciously sit there and watch someone kill my brother and there be nothing I can do about it … I would feel like I’m failing my little brother because I’m his big brother. How am I not protecting him?”
– Andre Wooden, Tremane Wooden’s older brother
Because the Nov. 13 execution date approaches, Tremane’s girlfriend and members of the family are alternating who will get to take the one visitation slot every week. On Oct. 4, Linda made the two-hour drive with Tremane’s sister-in-law Micky Winn-Scannell, her daughter Brooklyn Wooden, and Tremane’s different niece Andreyanna Wooden.
The jail requires guests below 18 to carry a duplicate of their delivery certificates, however Brooklyn, 17, was beforehand in a position to enter together with her ID. This time, although, a guard refused to let her in.
“Is there no way we can speak to somebody?” Brooklyn pleaded. “My uncle only has 40 days left to live.”
The guards wouldn’t budge, so Brooklyn sat within the automotive together with her mother within the car parking zone till the go to was over. She had simply gotten braces, and she or he was trying ahead to displaying Tremane.
Winn-Scannell initially tried to maintain her children from Tremane, hoping to spare them the ache of rising near somebody who could be executed. Regardless of her efforts, they bought to know him by letters and cellphone calls. Winn-Scannell ultimately stopped making an attempt to discourage the connection as soon as she noticed how a lot Brooklyn benefited from having the ability to open up to her uncle.
Winn-Scannell worries how her daughter, who has beforehand struggled with self-harm, will cope with out Tremane. Throughout a current cellphone name with Tremane, she recorded him saying, “I love you niece-y, mwah, mwah, mwah.”
If he’s executed, Winn-Scannell plans to make use of the audio to make Brooklyn a teddy bear with a customizable voice message. “If everything doesn’t turn around, at least she’ll have that,” Winn-Scannell stated.
Tremane Wooden’s Clemency Software
On Oct. 9, the day of Tremane’s forty sixth birthday, he was given a full-body bodily. A physician checked his vitals and put a tourniquet on his arm and leg to examine the situation of his veins. They wanted to verify he was wholesome sufficient to be killed.
After the bodily, he was taken to the visitation room, the place he sat chained throughout the desk from a few dozen jail officers and staffers. The warden learn his loss of life warrant, detailing how he could be killed. He took be aware of the paralyzing drug used — if he felt ache, he would doubtless be unable to specific it.
He was given his 35-day packet, paperwork directing him to decide on his final meal, his record of witnesses (a most of 5) and what he would really like performed along with his physique and property. The jail supplied takeout menus from a number of eating places in McAlester, together with Huge Macs BBQ, doubtless a reference to the Oklahoma State Penitentiary’s nickname. The menu contains dishes just like the “Behind Bars Rib,” the “Jail Bird Smoked Turkey” and the “Life Sentence Tray,” though the latter exceeds the jail’s $25 allowance. (Thompson stated that DOC “does not provide menus from any specific restaurant as options for inmates choosing their last meals.”)
The warden detailed what “death watch,” the ultimate seven days forward of the execution date, would entail. Tremane might be topic to fixed surveillance. Any time he leaves the cell, he might be strip-searched. If he brushes his tooth, he has to return the toothbrush when he’s performed. The lights won’t ever go off.
It was an unsettling expertise for him, sitting in that room, surrounded by strangers watching him study the main points of how he’ll die.
“It makes you feel lonely,” he stated.
In the event you or somebody you realize wants assist, name or textual content 988 or chat 988lifeline.org for psychological well being help. Moreover, yow will discover native psychological well being and disaster assets at dontcallthepolice.com. Exterior of the U.S., please go to the Worldwide Affiliation for Suicide Prevention.
