Hey, they're folks. It is Wednesday, November fifth, and he has been on death row for twenty years. He is scheduled to die by lethal injection next week, but his family doesn't want him to die. The victim's family doesn't want him to die, and now the parole board just a short time ago also said it recommends he not die as well. Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Roades. We follow a lot of these cases as of late.
These death row cases usually not a whole lot of hope in a clemency hearing, and we usually know how these things are going to go. Got surprised today.
That's right.
We listened to this clemency hearing in Oklahoma City today and it was fascinating. It was powerful, and we weren't even sure it was going to go the way it did. The board would ultimately, in a split decision, recommend clemency, but it was really remarkable to hear both sides of this case.
Well, we always think, right we for the most part, they don't get clemency this close to an.
Execution almost never.
Governors aren't granting it, Parole boards aren't saying okay, So it's very little Hope. So yes, it was shocking to sit up and hear it go the way it went. And we're talking about if you don't know the name, you're going to be hearing it probably for the next week. Was now the governor they in Oklahoma as a decision to make, but Tremaine would forty six years old Ropes convicted. It was New Year's Day, two thousand and two, murder of a nineteen year old by the name of Ronnie
wiff and Rose. This was a kind of a night of crime, a mini crimes free with him, his brother and two women.
That's correct, And Tremaine does not deny being a part of what led up to death of Ronnie wef. He admits that he was there along with his brother and as you mentioned, those two women. But he was the only one sentenced to death out of that group. His brother was sentenced to life without parole. His brother died
in prison a short while ago twenty nineteen. But he is the only one who was sentenced to death, despite the fact that his own brother has admitted or did admit, that he's the one he claims to have killed Ronnie West.
So it's gone back and forth and then we'll get into what the two sides are saying about that. But yes, the women lure two guys into a hotel room and then these two guys, Tremaine Wood and his brother came was supposed to just rob the guys. A violent struggle ensues. He's armed, Tremaine Wood armed with a knife, his brother, Jake Wood is armed with a gun. The victim is stabbed once and dies. And that is there we are, and there was a discrepancy about who actually did the stabbing.
Now that clemency hearing today was and I appreciate when they do this. They had a very convenient and very functioning zoom link that everybody could use.
It was wonderful to have that kind of transparency.
And I understand why some folks don't want cameras in the courtroom and they don't like a lot of the media attention, but certainly in cases like this where a life is at stake and we're witnessing our government, yes we're watching it, and it's so rare that you get insight into that, especially when you don't live in Oklahoma City or you aren't able to go to the courthouse. For them to set that up was really really cool,
and it was a learning experience for me. Even though we've covered so many court cases and covered murder trials and even witness and execution, I don't believe I've ever actually, in real time witnessed and listened to a clemency hearing take place.
Well, certainly I haven't seen one. I don't believe that involved a death row case, end one. Certainly a death case in which we hear from the death row inmate. Yes, folks, Tremaine Woods spoke for himself at one point today in this hearing, and the way they set that up. They gave both sides robes forty minutes. They said, use it how you want to. We want rebuttal time you want some a witness to come up, but you get forty minutes to do what you want to do and how you're going to split it up.
We appreciated that too, because because sometimes, as we've seen, after having just recently covered the Diddy trial, how things can just go on and on and on. This was pretty well, it wasn't pretty. It was very orderly and concise. Forty minutes forty minutes.
Two witnesses were there, both for Tremaine Wood, his sixth grade teacher will tell you about her comments that had tears in our eyes at some points, and then a statement read by his seventeen year old niece the victim's family, Ronnie Wiff. They did not take part, however, they have said they do not want this execution to move forward.
They have been on the record in saying that. So Tremaine Woodside went up first and Rome's first things First, they say, yep, he was there, he participated, he takes responsibility. That's probably a good thing to start with.
Yes, And his attorney went on to talk about the difference or just the tale between two brothers. They were both charged in this crime, and they set a boiled down to resources. His brother, Jake got a good defense team and that fought the execution correctly and certainly was able to get him life without parole versus death sentence. Tremaine, they say did not. They say his attorney never met with him once outside of the courtroom.
It's kind of astonishing. It's astonishing a death row inmates.
It's hard to believe. They also said that his attorney, and this has been documented, they claim was dealing at the time with substance abuse issues. And that he only spent two hours on the case in nineteen months. And what the attorney says, we know this is true because literally there were two two billable hours over a period of nineteen months. That's how much time he put into defending a death penalty case.
That's kind of remarkable, it's unconscionable, but they say that is what happened. They continue to make their case at least why clemency is warranted here. They say the jury in his trial didn't hear a couple of things, including the fact that his brother admitted that he was the one who actually killed Ronnie with jury never heard that. They also didn't hear the Tremaine was sexually abused by a neighbor when he was nine or ten years old.
They said that had impact on him. Jury never heard that. Also, his side alleged that his prosecutorial his conduct. So they are there kind of made their case. I get some of the board members had questions afterwards, and it was interesting to hear what parts they were focusing on. Of course, his attorney's Tremaine was attorneys throwing everything in the wall, see what sticks. But some of them were like, I don't care about this. I don't going to care about that.
They seemed to focus on did he get a fair trial or not? Correct, don't care who killed in the room. Yes, So was there an issue at his trial in which we need to slow down and make sure he gets a fair trial.
Yes, And so that was some indication about at least how some members were considering to vote. But then we heard from his teacher, his sixth grade teacher, Cindy Birdwell, and wow, this was this My heart was breaking as I was listening to her talk about this bright, smart, promising young student who was very loquacious, talkative, always wanted to be a part of things, was an excellent student.
And just the fact that she said.
She realized later after the fact that he was a little boy in pain and she missed it. She didn't see it, and she said she still feels guilty to this day that she didn't intervene in it different way, in a better way, had she known what he was living through at home.
I just thought the fact that she was sitting there was remarkable that thirty five years ago she had a twelve year old or whatever in her classroom that she's now sitting and trying to help save his life on death row. That's got to be just you never think of something like that. And to hear her say that she saw his name in the paper as being on death row and she knew she had to reach out
because she said, Nope, that's not him. So something has happened, because whoever this is sitting on death row is not that same kid. It was interesting to hear.
And she said that they began writing to one another and they developed a relationship back and forth, penpals, so to speak. But she just spoke so highly of him and wasn't I don't think he did it. She said, he wouldn't have done this, He couldn't have done this. That wasn't who he was. And she spoke about her his brother being a very different and a bad influence on him. And so she was bolstering up that notion that it was not her student, it was not Tremaine, it was Jack.
You know, even just a little note in her saying he still to this day won't call me anything other than missus spur well, yeah, just something about that. There was some humanity to that little nugget of information. She gave his niece seventeen years old. Brooklyn Wood got up talked as well, and it was kind of interesting to hear her say, look, I know it sounds funny to think that somebody on death row could be a role model, but he is, said he's helped her through some difficulty.
They stay and pretty sounds like he has access to a lot of folks he's able to stay in pretty good contact with. But it was to have his seventeen year old niece up there, who was very steady and read her statement was I thought was effective as well.
I did too, And it was sweet to hear her voice, her voice there in defense of her uncle.
Okay, so all this stuff we're talking about, and you hear our tone and it was very sweet, and the teacher and all this and then complete complete turn when the other side gets up and starts describing what kind of monster they say this man is in particularly, the Attorney General got up there first, called these called him an executioner, said what happened that night was a deliberate predatory attack. He said, every time he's appelled, a court
has upheld the findings. Now, I thought those interesting robes. He said, this is the same guy behind bars as he is out in the world. They were making the point of so much misconduct and things he's done in prison. He said, nothing has changed about this man other than his setting.
Wow, and his attorney when she was setting up in defense of him, she acknowledged ahead of time they knew what the process Cuschen was going to bring, that he had had some misconduct behind bars, and she did say, yes, he has had some cell phones, and yes he's he's
done some things that he shouldn't have. We'll get into some of what those things are in a bit, but she just made she kind of pre acknowledged what they were going to say, and then said, but none of those offenses rice the level of someone who should be executed.
Yes and true. And the boardman was like, that's not the point. Yes, exactly, sow were we're getting that here?
Yes, So we had the assistant ag go through the actual night of the crime.
Yeah. Now she was the one who was making the case here that Look, this is they made two cases, the guy who was on the outside and the guy who's on the inside. So she was talking about the crime itself, and she went through the steps. Look, this was a deliberate act. He asked his friends to go buy gloves and ski masks. They use this to go rob a pizza joint. They got the money they needed and it wasn't necessary, and then he beats the guy,
the owner of the restaurant. And while we're talking about this stuff ropes, they were showing like slides of everything up there, so we got a bunch of imagery up there. So they start going through what happens that night. They end up in this hotel room and rose. This was a pretty big sticking point all night. Everyone who was a part of this who saw anything and saw these two men, him and his brother. They say tremain Wood had the knife robes and his brother had the gun.
There's nowhere anywhere that suggests they ever switched except now Tremaine Wood is trying to explain that.
Yeah, somehow, they claim because of an injury on the brother's hand and whichever hand it was that they used. The implication was that somehow, in the middle of this scuffle and this robbery that had gone or turned violent unexpectedly, they decided to switch weapons in the middle of this scuffle, and Jack ended up with the knife and Tremaine ended up with the gun.
Yes, that didn't land.
At all, to the point that they said it was far fetched to say the least. I mean, as they were describing and explaining it, how did the not how did the weapons get switched? And why would they There wasn't a good explanation for that, really, folks, imagine four people fighting. We're all in a small hotel room. This is a motel. This wasn't some sprawling suite in a small area. You're fighting and you switch weapons. Here, you take this one, I'll take this.
It's almost comical kind ofness.
But that is the point they were making. And also Brogues they had the letter actually up on screen for us to see, in which he wrote his brother when they were in jail, asking him, are you going to tell them that you called me and asked me to come meet you at the store after the fact.
His brother to lie.
Yes. The suggestion there is that he was trying to set all this up and said, and again a theme was about manipulation. This is just what he does, and he's doing.
It to you one more time, right, And so then he talked about they talked about what has been happening inside prison, that other setting by Woods and what Tremaine has been doing while he's been behind bars, and they say what he's been doing is committing more crimes, multiple conduct violations in prison. He's been repeatedly caught with cell phones with drugs. They actually said he was a drug distributor and used the phones to carry on drug trades.
And they actually put up pictures of him.
They had a bunch.
Throwing up gang signs.
You and I looked at them, pictures of him with gang tattoos, and these were all pictures he took of himself.
Correct with the cell phones.
They're showing all this stuff in the middle of this session. I mean tons, It's not not like he was posing, is that him? Or no? No, no, no, no, these are selfies. He's a dead yes.
And perhaps some of the most damning evidence was the video.
The video is tough. There was a the video they played was of a beating that happened at another prison. But this was a beating that they say and look for me would had to admit and because they have it electronically, he was asking for this person who had hurt family member of his I believe killed the family member of his too, won him beaten up and sure enough. He essentially ordered this guy to be beaten, and he wanted it filmed.
Yeah, he wanted the videos sent back to him.
Yes, and sure enough he got it and they played it in during the hearing today. So when these things went back to back robes, because I was talking to you about it when one side was testifying and said, Wow, this is right, this is powerful stuff, and you came back a little while later and listening to the other side, I'm like, wow, yeah, he's bad, dud.
This is not looking good.
Yeah, but we heard from two sides, but we heard from the man himself. Tremaine Wood did testify at his own clemency hearing today from prison in handcuffs, and he read a prepared statement. We'll tell you what he had to stay had to say, and then stay see what I was trying to do there.
That I do so it happens to me all the time, it rarely happens to you. I'm glad to see you're human, say and stay, stay with us.
We'll be right.
Back, all right, folks. We continue now with Tremaine Wood, who got some really good news a short time ago. Tremaine Wood, who has been on death row in Oklahoma for the past twenty years now got word that the Parole Board is recommending clemency. He is scheduled to die by lethal injection next week, but they have recommended in a split decision that he his life be spared. But it's not up to them. Ultimately, all they can do robes,
and this is the case in most places. All they can do is recommend yes.
And the governor in this state of Oklahoma recently did not go with the recommendation of the clemency board.
Sure, I can't remember the number, but it's double digits who've been executed since he's been governor, and only one has he granted clemency. But yeah, one of the most recent the board split decisions said Nope, we do not think this person should be executed. The governor did not go along with that recommendation, So it is not guaranteed here. What's going to happen to him? In robes It was
the moment they gave him twenty minutes. But part of the hearing today was Tremaine Wood getting to speak for himself. He was sitting in a it's kind of an empty room, no really back drops, cement walls. It might have been but at a table with his attorney next to him. But they swarm in and I don't know what I was expecting, but sure no, they swarm and he messed up his hand and he was handcuffed. Wow for this today,
whatever procedures, I understand. I don't know why that threw like for this, but yeah, sure enough he was handcuffed and he started to read a prepared statement, and I was saying to heroes, he didn't really change his tone or wasn't that passion. He just got through it and read it and some stuff you could expect to hear.
Yes, he talked about his great level of humility and respect for the process. And then this was important. He put the blame squarely on himself for this death. And I think that's really important because up until now, I mean, even if you claim you didn't or you weren't the one to actually put the knife through Ronnie WIFF's heart, at least he's acknowledging his role in the crime. And if he hadn't been trying to rock him that certainly
he would likely be alive today. So that was an important part of the process that he at least acknowledged his role in the death.
But then he called.
Prison quicksand he said, sometimes you can lose your way in here. That's not exactly taking responsibility for his actions in prison.
He vaguely acknowledged mistakes and things he's done in prison, but it's kind of a one off and an oops, is how he described it. The other side had pictures and evidence and showing and from recent.
Right, copious amounts of drugs.
From recent years and from past years. That's been going on.
For quite a while decades, it sounds like, and.
So some with that. But the quicksand idea is that, yeah, this place, the more you try to fight it, the more it sucks you in. Was kind of a thing he was explaining. And I'm sure he's he's right. I'm sure he is, But he closed I thought in a strong way. He talked about he had kind of acknowledged that I know my family's listening. He was talking about how supportive they are and what he means to the family
and how they need him around it. He said to them, I ask you to see something in my life worth value. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Maybe this that none of that matters, and they're just going by the law. But I thought that was well said, say that and be used in so many factor That's.
Of life interesting because obviously the clemency ward the parole board is looking at the legal aspects of this, But I wonder how much of the emotional human aspects of this come in and how big of a statement or how much of an impact a statement like that has. It probably depends on the individual. And I don't even know what the guidance is. Are they allowed to consider that or do they just have to consider the law as they see it.
And the law we should I've meant to say this earlier. It's similar to the what's the thing is saying? Always forget its South Carolina the hand of one, the hand of one is the hand of all that think it's a similar law, if you will in Missouri. Yes, that both of them are equally responsible for the crime because they were both there and the commissioning of a robbery. Somebody died, so both of them are responsible equally, doesn't matter who stabbed whom.
I actually, my first murder trial I ever ever reported on was in South Carolina, and it was a hand of one is the hand of all and this kid was not the one who pulled the trigger, but he was with the group with someone who did and he got capital murder death penalty.
So here is the thing. People still have a difficult time ropes because what we're dealing with two men responsible for the exact same crime, on trial for the exact same crime, convicted of the exact same.
Crime, first degree murder.
One of them says they did it, the other one said they did not do it. But the one who says he did not do it is the only one on death row that was ever given a death penalty. So that, for a lot of people doesn't make sense at all at all. And the bottom line is the law is being applied the way the law is. It doesn't just two juries saw it differently.
Wow, and two brothers.
Yeah. So uh, he's got this Next Thursday, rights.
Next Thursday is his scheduled execution in Oklahoma, And I'm not sure when, or I guess the governor has until the last moment to decide whether or not he wants to grant clemency.
You can.
That's why eleventh, there is a phone. At least the one eyewitness there literally was a phone right next to the gurney. Where it was taking place, and we said split decision. It was fairly dramatic how it went down. And the Clemency board, they the brobol they voted immediately.
Oh yeah, I'm always fascinated by that. They don't want to take a beat. They don't even take an hour, half hour. They get these decisions pretty quickly. But the way they were the board, I think it was five men, might have been one woman, but I think it was five men. But you see them sitting at this long table as with the shots showed. But when it was time to vote, they did this roll call and the first person on the end yes, next person no, next person yes, next person no.
And you know he needs three yeses in order for him to be granted clembing.
So it's the last one. It was going to be the decider, and sure enough it was a yes. It was a little bit of a reaction in the room emotionally, but they told them to be quiet, but that was it and those guys were out of there and that was the end of it.
So wow, wow is right.
It's it's going to be remarkable to see what the governor decides and what ultimately happens to Tremaine would. He obviously is not looking to get out, not trying to get out of being punished or incarcerated. He just doesn't want to die next week and we will keep you updated on this developing story, but thank you for listening.
In the meantime, I'm Amy Robot alongside TJ. Holmes. Hope you all have a great day.