Bob Ray Sanders' latest column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is, "Another execution is scheduled under flawed law-of-parties provision."
Make a note of this name: Jeffery Lee Wood.
And this date: Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008.
That’s Wood’s scheduled date of execution, two days after his 35th birthday.
Now, go back in time with me.
It was a year ago this month — just outside the prison walls that house the Texas death chamber — when a small group of us staunch death-penalty opponents stood in stunned amazement with the family of a condemned man.
We had just gotten news that Gov. Rick Perry had taken the advice of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and commuted the sentence of Kenneth Foster from death to life in prison. The decree came just a few hours before Foster’s scheduled execution.
Our amazement turned to jubilation on the Huntsville prison grounds that afternoon, not only because Foster’s life had been spared but also because the governor and board had hinted that there were problems with the law under which the inmate had been convicted and sentenced.
Foster had been tried under the "law of parties" designed to treat "conspirators" equally, meaning that all could be considered culpable for the actions of the one who commits a second crime while in the commission of another. Texas is the only state that applies that law in capital cases.
And:
This newspaper editorialized against Foster’s execution and called for the Legislature to re-examine the law of parties.
Wood, convicted under the same law of parties, is set to be executed this week, five months before the next legislative session begins.
His case is more complicated than Foster’s and involves a series of issues that demand his sentence be commuted to life.
Although he was not tried with his co-defendant, a man who’s been executed for the 1996 murder of a Kerrville convenience store operator, prosecutors continued to link him to the killer.
"Daniel Reneau, who coldly murdered Kriss Keeran in the early morning hours of January 2, 1996, has already been executed by the State of Texas for this senseless act," according to a clemency petition submitted to the governor and the Board of Pardons and Paroles. "Nevertheless, on August 21, 2008, the State seeks to execute Jeffery Wood for the same crime, even though the State does not contend that Mr. Wood shot Keeran. In fact, Mr. Wood was not even in the building when Reneau shot and killed Keeran."
Wood was in on a scheme with Reneau to rob the store with the help of the store’s assistant manager, Bill Bunker, according to the petition. It was to have been an inside job, as Bunker had told the two men where the video recording devices were and how much money was expected to be in the safe.
When Reneau went into the store, Wood remained in a pickup and was later shocked by the sound of a gunshot. Reneau had killed Keeran.
The clemency petition suggests that Wood’s culpability for the crime should lie somewhere between Reneau’s and Bunker’s.
Reneau committed the murder and has been executed for it, but "Bunker — despite being a co-conspirator without whose agreement and encouragement the crime never would have occurred — was never charged with any crime," the petition said.
And:
I know the governor gets tired of hearing from me on death-penalty cases, but he must commute this sentence.
It is clear that Wood does not deserve to be executed, and no other person should be put to death under a law that many people believe should never have applied to capital cases.
The least we can do is wait until the Legislature deals with this law in its next session.
Diane Jennings posted to the Dallas Morning News Crime Blog on Friday afternoon, "Unusual group rallies around Texas death row inmate Jeff Wood."
But perhaps most surprising is the stance of Charles Keeran, father of the victim, convenience store clerk Kriss Keeran.
In 1997, when Daniel Reneau, the gunman in the 1996 robbery, was convicted, Charles Keeran called Mr. Reneau and Mr. Wood "garbage."
"I want to see 'em die," he said.
Five years later he changed his mind, asking the governor to commute Mr. Reneau's sentence because killing him wouldn't do any good. Mr. Reneau was executed anyway, but Mr. Keeran is now asking that Mr. Woods be spared, telling the San Antonio Express-News that death is "the easy way out" for the Livingston inmate.
"If you had to be down there and get up every morning, as hot and humid as it is, knowing that you are going to spend the rest of your life locked up under those conditions, that's punishment. That's what I think my son would want for him."
Earlier StandDown coverage of the Wood case is here; Jeff Wood's clemency petition, here.
Comments