AP's Mike Graczyk has, "Lawyers try to block execution set for Thursday."
Lawyers for condemned prisoner Jeffery Wood say his mental problems led him to get involved in a robbery scheme that left a Texas Hill Country store clerk murdered in a fatal shooting carried out by a partner while Wood sat outside in a car.
Attorneys for Wood were in the federal courts seeking permission to hire mental health experts to pursue their arguments that he was incompetent to be executed Thursday for the January 1996 slaying of Kriss Keeran, 31, at a Kerrville Texaco gas station convenience store.
Texas courts have refused the appeals.
Wood would be the ninth condemned prisoner put to death this year and the fifth this month in the nation's busiest capital punishment state. At least a dozen other Texas inmates have execution dates in the coming months.
Daniel Reneau, the gunman in Keeran's slaying and Wood's roommate, was executed in 2002. Wood, whose 35th birthday was Tuesday, was convicted under the Texas law of parties, which makes accomplices as liable as the actual killer in capital murder cases.
Wood's mental illness "was a critical element throughout his trial and sentencing," Wood's lawyers said.
Attorney Scott Sullivan said in a motion rejected Tuesday by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that he met with Wood a month ago at death row and Wood told him he believed the trial judge in his case was corrupt but would accept a $100,000 bribe and then deport him to Norway where he could live with his wife.
Sullivan said Wood also believed, among other things, that the government will pay him $50,000 a year once he's released and that he's willing to give that money to the judge.
"Wood's delusional beliefs are true to him and always presented in grandiose fashion," Sullivan said.
While the U.S. Supreme Court has barred the execution of prisoners determined to be mentally retarded, the same blanket prohibition has not been extended to those with mental illness.
Earlier coverage begins with this morning's post.
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