JUNK SCIENCE PSYCHIATRIC TESTIMONY HALTS EXECUTION OF TEXAS MAN

Jeffrey Wood, who sat outside in a car when his friend Daniel Reneau shot dead a Texaco convenience store clerk in 1996, was convicted under Texas' 'law of parties', which finds accomplices just as guilty as the actual perpetrators and sentenced to death when a psychiatrist testified that he would certainly pose a risk to public safety

By Associated Press and Daily Mail reporter Jessica Chia

Daily Mail
August 20, 2016

A man on death row received news on his 43rd birthday that his execution had been shelved.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled 7-2 on Friday to put Jeffrey Wood's execution on hold just five days before he was scheduled to receive a lethal injection.

Even though Wood was waiting in a car when his friend Daniel Reneau shot dead a Texaco store during a 1996 robbery, he was convicted of capital murder.

Under Texas' 'law of parties', accomplices are just as guilty as the actual perpetrators.

The case drew widespread attention and highly unusual opposition from Republican lawmakers.

In a two-page opinion, the appeals court said Wood's death sentence was based on false testimony and false scientific evidence given by a since-discredited psychiatrist who asserted that Wood would certainly pose a risk to public safety.

Wood's attorney Jared Tyler said 'the court did the right thing' in halting the execution and returning the case to a state district court in Kerrville, Texas.

Wood and his friend Daniel Reneau were convicted in the death of a 31-year-old store clerk during a robbery two decades ago.

He and Reneau had planned to rob the store's safe, but Wood backed out and asked his friend not to bring his gun when they went to the store that day, his then-girlfriend testified.

But Reneau allegedly brought the gun without his knowledge, and shot store clerk Kris Keeran with a .22-caliber handgun.

Wood was convicted of capital murder under what's known as the Texas law of parties, which makes a participant in a capital murder case equally culpable.

Reneau was executed in 2002.

'Justice is not served by executing Mr. Wood, who was outside the building when it happened and who had no criminal history,' Tyler said in a statement Friday.

Despite supporting capital punishment, Republican state representative Jeff Leach formally asked the Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles to recommend commuting Wood's death sentence to life imprisonment.

He is part of a Republican-controlled legislature that has blocked efforts from Democrats to abolish the death penalty in Texas.

But Leach told the Texas Tribune: 'I simply do not believe that Mr. Wood is deserving of the death sentence.

'I can’t sit quietly by and not say anything.'

Earlier this month, 16 Roman Catholic bishops in Texas wrote to state governor Greg Abbott, imploring him to grant a stay of execution to Wood.

'Mr. Wood has never taken a human life in his own hands.

'He was not even in the building at the time of the crime.

'It is extremely rare for any person in the history of modern death penalty to have been executed with as little culpability and participation in the taking of a life as Mr. Wood,' the letter reads.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As an ardent supporter of and advocate for the death penalty, I have no problem if Wood avoids execution and gets life without possibility of parole instead.