Jemaine Cannon to go before Oklahoma parole board in death sentence case
A death row inmate convicted in the beating and stabbing death of a young woman nearly three decades ago will seek clemency Wednesday before the state Pardon and Parole Board.
Jemaine Cannon, now 51, faces execution for murdering Sharonda White Clark, a 20-year-old mother of two, in 1995 at her Tulsa apartment after escaping from an Oklahoma Department of Corrections community work center in southwest Oklahoma.
Before Clark’s death, Cannon had been staying with her at Normandy Apartments, 6246 E 36th St.
On Feb. 5, 1995, authorities found Clark dead in the back bedroom of her apartment.
Authorities at the time said Clark died in a violent struggle. Her injuries included three stab wounds in the neck. Her carotid artery was severed, and her jugular vein was cut.
Clark was reported missing after she failed to pick her children up from a day care center.
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Jermaine Cannon had been serving 15-year-sentence at work center
Authorities said that on Jan. 13, 1995, or about three weeks before Clark was found dead, Cannon stole a pickup owned by the Walters school system, where he cleaned and maintained school buses.
The truck was found in Tulsa, where Cannon once lived.
Cannon was serving a 15-year sentence for a 1990 attack on an 18-year-old woman who spurned his advances.
That woman, who knew Cannon only slightly, was beaten in the head with an iron, a toaster and a hammer, state Pardon and Parole Board records show.
The victim was permanently disfigured and nearly killed, Tulsa County prosecutors reported.
They said Cannon also had been violent with previous girlfriends or ex-girlfriends.
Cannon entered prison in December 1991 for a conviction on assault with intent to kill. The sentence resulted from a plea agreement.
After the discovery of Clark’s body in Tulsa, authorities captured Cannon on Feb. 7, 1995, in Flint, Michigan.
His case drew anger from former Gov. Frank Keating, who at the time blasted the state Corrections Department classification system that allowed Cannon to serve his 15-year sentence for a violent crime in a community setting.
After entering the prison system, Cannon was assigned to a minimum-security prison. Two years later, he was assigned to the Walters Community Work Center.
Corrections officials acknowledged that Cannon should have been at a higher security level but said space in such facilities already was filled.
Investigators said Cannon had been staying with Clark since his escape from the Walters work center.
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The defense of Jemaine Cannon
During his 1996 jury trial in Tulsa County, Cannon’s mother testified that he called her after Clark was found dead, and said Clark came at him with a knife because she was tired of people leaving her.
The jury found Cannon guilty of first-degree murder and recommended the death penalty.
In 1998, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Cannon’s conviction and death penalty.
In 2013, a federal judge affirmed the death sentence.
In 2021, the Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected another Cannon appeal because the McGirt v. Oklahoma decision — a 2020 ruling in which the U.S. Supreme Court found the Muscogee (Creek) reservation was never disestablished — was not retroactive and Cannon had not previously raised the jurisdictional issue.
Cannon has claimed his defense team at trial was ineffective.
On Wednesday, Cannon’s case will go before the Pardon and Parole Board at the Health Care Authority building, 4345 N Lincoln Blvd.
In a petition to the board, lawyers for Cannon wrote that he first spoke to Clark in March 1994, when his sister put Clark on the phone with him briefly.
In July of that year, the two were introduced by Cannon’s mother at the funeral for Cannon’s brother. In Oklahoma, prisoners at minimum-security facilities might be granted escorted emergency leave. The petition says Cannon also met Clark’s husband, but no further mention of the husband is made.
In January 1995, Cannon, now an escaped convict, arrived in Tulsa and made phone contact multiple times with Clark, according to the petition.
His mother arranged for Clark to “harbor Jemaine," according to the petition.
Clark was not Cannon’s girlfriend, according to the petition.
That day, while the two prepared the apartment to be sprayed for bugs, a female neighbor stopped by and asked Clark for money, which angered Clark, according to the petition.
Cannon’s lawyers claim Clark also became angry when Cannon gathered his belongings to leave the apartment.
During one struggle, according to the petition, Cannon grabbed Clark by the wrists to prevent her from hitting him, but when he let go, she accidentally punched herself in the nose, which started to bleed.
According to the petition, Clark came at Cannon with a knife. During a struggle, the knife was dropped and they both attempted to reach it. Cannon got the knife and “blindly swung it.”
Clark continued to attack Cannon, who “only swung the knife a total of four times,” according to the petition.
Cannon dragged Clark into the bathroom to seek medical attention, according to the petition, but saw that she was dead.
“Jemaine then changed clothes and left the apartment,” according to the petition.
Cannon is scheduled to be executed July 20 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
If the board recommends clemency, and Gov. Kevin Stitt accepts, Cannon’s death sentence will be changed to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma death row inmate Jemaine Cannon seeks clemency in 1995 case
