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#Post#: 168--------------------------------------------------
~ Jeffrey Wood, (TX) ~
By: BuzzC Date: May 29, 2016, 3:31 pm
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Convicted killer in 1996 Kerrville, TX slaying set to die--
Monday, May 23rd, 2016
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HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A convicted killer on death row for a
January 1996 fatal robbery in the Texas Hill Country is set to
die later this summer.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark said
Monday the agency has received court documents setting
42-year-old Jeffrey Wood for lethal injection Aug. 24.
Wood’s 2008 execution was stopped by a federal judge for testing
to determine if Wood was mentally competent for capital
punishment. Testing showed he was competent and other courts now
have upheld those findings.
Wood was convicted under the Texas law of parties, which makes
the participant in a capital murder equally culpable of the
crime. Evidence showed his roommate, Daniel Reneau, fatally shot
31-year-old Kerrville store clerk Kriss Keeran. Both men then
robbed the store.
Reneau was executed in 2002.
HTML http://www.abqjournal.com/779242/convicted-killer-in-1996-kerrville-tx-slaying-set-to-die.html
8)
#Post#: 174--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Jeffrey Wood, (TX) ~
By: BuzzC Date: August 21, 2016, 5:06 pm
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Texas inmate who didn’t kill anyone gets stay of execution--
August 21, 2016
Days before Jeffrey Wood was expected to be executed for his
role in a deadly robbery 20 years ago, the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals on Friday granted him a stay of execution.
Everybody, including the prosecuting attorney, agrees Wood
didn’t kill anyone.
In 1996, a 22-year-old Wood waited in a pickup truck while his
friend Daniel Reneau went inside a gas station in Kerrville,
Texas to steal the store’s safe.
Reneau ended up killing the clerk during the robbery.
Most states allow a distinction between accomplices and those
who physically carry out the crime.
But, in Texas, sitting in that truck and taking part in the
robbery was enough to get Wood convicted of murder and onto
death row.
On his 43rd birthday, Wood received news the execution was
halted.
The two-page order sent two arguments from the defense to the
trial court for resolution.
One of the claims argued “false and misleading testimony” was
presented by the prosecuting side’s psychiatrist and it was in
violation of due process.
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.”
Among the defense’s claims that were not addressed in the order:
That’s Wood participation was too minimal to warrant the death
penalty under the Eighth Amendment.
The crime
Reneau was a drifter who showed up in Kerrville during the
summer of 1995.
By November of that year, he met Wood through a friend, after
couch-surfing and motel-hopping around town.
The pair eventually moved into a trailer together along with
their girlfriends.
Wood’s girlfriend, Nadia Mireles, noticed Reneau engaging in
“erratic and threatening” behavior once the foursome started
living under one roof, court documents said.
Reneau had started arming himself and committing crimes.
In December 1995, Wood and Reneau stole firearms and stored them
in the trailer.
Then came the plan to steal the safe from the Texaco gas station
after Wood and Reneau befriended the clerks who worked there.
Kris Keeran, the clerk Reneau would eventually shoot, allowed
the two to hang around the store, scratching lottery tickets.
The three of them, along with the assistant manager, discussed
“how to defraud the store of money,” according to court
documents.
Keeran later changed his mind about stealing from the store, the
filing said, which frustrated Reneau.
Sitting in a borrowed pickup truck outside the gas station in
the early morning of January 2, 1996, Wood waited for Reneau to
steal the safe.
His defense attorneys have argued, numerous times, Wood did not
know Reneau was carrying a gun and would subsequently shoot
Keeran.
Reneau was executed in 2002.
The law of parties
The Texas statute commonly referred to as the “law of parties”
abolishes “distinctions between accomplices and principals…and
each party to an offense may be charged and convicted without
alleging that he acted as a principal or accomplice.”
Crucially, it adds: “If, in the attempt to carry out a
conspiracy to commit one felony, another felony is committed by
one of the conspirators, all conspirators are guilty of the
felony actually committed, though having no intent to commit
it…”
The law is not unique to Texas.
In some states, it is called “accomplice liability” or
“Pinkerton liability” resulting from the 1946 US Supreme Court
case Pinkerton vs. United States, according to the National
Coalition Against the Death Penalty.
The statute closest to Texas’ law of parties is on the books in
Georgia, NCADP said.
In September 2015, Georgia executed Kelly Gissendaner, who was
convicted of murder, for persuading her lover to kill her
husband in 1997.
Mark Bennett, a criminal defense lawyer who has worked in Texas
for over two decades, made the point the situation is black and
white in Texas because there are no accessories or accomplices
to crimes in Texas.
“Either you take some role in the crime or you don’t,” he said.
“And, so, there is no way for Wood to be an accessory to
murder.”
The last man to be convicted and executed under the “law of
parties” statute in Texas was 34-year-old Robert Lee Thompson on
November 19, 2009.
His co-defendant, Sammy Butler, killed a store clerk whom the
two were robbing.
Butler is serving a life sentence.
Thompson did shoot another store clerk in the robbery attempt
and that man lived.
Wood’s second stay of execution
Charles Keeran, the father of the gas station clerk killed by
Reneau, said he “originally wished for Reneau and Wood to be
executed, [but he] changed his mind after Reneau’s execution,”
according to The Dallas Morning News.
Keeran told the Dallas newspaper living in prison is a better
punishment and death was the “easy way out.”
CNN made repeated attempts to contact the Keeran family but was
not able to reach them for a comment.
Terri Been, Wood’s sister, said she grew up a conservative
Republican but has spent the past 20 years fighting to change
the death penalty laws, which she believed in for much of her
adolescence.
Both Been and Wood’s lawyer, Tyler, said Wood has a learning
disability and an IQ of 80.
This was the reason for a stay of execution in 2008, to give the
defense time to argue Wood’s inability to comprehend actions and
words at an adult level.
“Even if Jeff learns something and can say it back right away,
the next day he’ll forget everything,” Been said.
The defense claims will go back to the trial court for fact
finding, Kate Black, who is assisting Wood’s legal team, told
CNN.
It will take a bit of time and there is no time line or date set
yet, she said.
“Once the trial court receives the order from today [Friday]
made by the appeals court, they will set dates. For now, the
stay of execution is in place until the case is resolved,” Black
said.
HTML http://kfor.com/2016/08/21/texas-inmate-who-didnt-kill-anyone-gets-stay-of-execution/
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