– Texas Department of Criminal Justice handout pic via ReutersWood, who turned 43 yesterday, was sentenced to death under a state law that says anyone involved in a criminal plot resulting in death is equally responsible regardless of actual involvement or intent.
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Under Texas’ “Law of Parties”, a person can be charged with capital murder even if the offense is committed by someone else.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals announced on Friday that the execution, which was scheduled to take place on August 24 by lethal injection, would be halted.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled 7-2 on Friday to put Jeffery Wood’s execution on hold.
The case has drawn highly unusual opposition from Republican lawmakers. Wood waited in a auto while Reneau shot the clerk in the face. It also has captured attention across the US over Wood’s culpability, his mental competence and criticism surrounding his original trial. The man who pulled the trigger was executed in 2002.
The other claimed the judgment also violates due process because it was based on false scientific evidence through “false psychiatric testimony concerning (Wood’s) future dangerousness”, CNN noted.
“Justice is not served by executing Mr”.
Three juror’s from Wood’s original trial said they would have discounted Grigson’s trial had they known he was expelled form the association. “[He] is grateful for the opportunity to prove that his death sentence is unwarranted”.
Jeffery Wood, scheduled to be executed on Wednesday.
Wood’s layer questioned a witness for the prosecution, forensic psychiatrist Dr. James Grigson, who told a court in the 1990s Wood would commit future acts of violence and was a threat to society.
One Republican legislator already had formally asked the Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles to recommend commuting Wood’s death sentence to life imprisonment, and GOP state Rep. Jeff Leach had said before the ruling that he was collecting a bipartisan set of signatures for a similar letter to be sent this weekend.
Although Leach is still in favor of capital punishment, according to the Washington Post, and the Texas Legislature, controlled by Republicans, has historically quashed all efforts by Democrats to abolish the death penalty, he believes Wood does not deserve to be executed.
“Even if Jeff learns something and can say it back right away, the next day he’ll forget everything”, Wood’s sister Terri Been Been said at the time.
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However, tests showed Wood was competent.
