The New York Times is reporting that Governor Perry “hasn’t made a decision” on whether to grant a 30 day stay of execution for Jeff Wood. So, please call his office and urge him to issue a stay.

From the Times:

Texas Panel Rejects Plea to Halt Execution of Accomplice in 1996 Murder

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: August 19, 2008

HOUSTON — Jeffrey Lee Wood is sentenced to die this week for the murder of a store clerk during a robbery, even though he was sitting in a truck outside the convenience store when it happened.

Mr. Wood is the latest person to face the death penalty under a Texas law that makes accomplices subject to the death penalty if a murder occurs during a crime.

His lawyers say Mr. Wood is a gullible man of limited intellect who suffers from delusions. In their view, Mr. Wood was never mentally competent to stand trial in the first place.

Nor, they argue, was Mr. Wood aware that his partner in the robbery, David Reneau, was carrying a gun, according to testimony presented at Mr. Reneau’s trial but never brought up during Mr. Wood’s trial.

These arguments failed to sway the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, however. On Tuesday afternoon, the seven-member board unanimously rejected a petition from Mr. Wood’s lawyers for a commutation of his sentence.

That means he will be executed Thursday evening, unless Gov. Rick Perry grants a 30-day reprieve or a judge issues a stay. “The governor hasn’t made a decision,” Mr. Perry’s spokeswoman, Allison Castle, said.

Mr. Wood, who is 35, also lost a motion before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday. His lawyers had asked the court to appoint a lawyer to pursue the argument that Mr. Wood lacks the mental competence to be executed.

Mr. Wood and Mr. Reneau were tried separately for the killing of Kriss Keeran, a 31-year-old cashier who was shot in the forehead during the robbery of a gas station and convenience store in Kerrville, Tex., on Jan. 2, 1996.

Mr. Reneau was executed in 2002.

The two robbers were roommates and knew the victim. Evidence at the two trials showed the pair had planned the robbery for about two weeks and had talks with Mr. Keeran and an assistant manager at the store, William Bunker, about staging a fake robbery.

But that plan went awry, and Mr. Reneau ended up walking into the store and shooting Mr. Keeran between the eyes with a .22-caliber pistol while Mr. Wood waited outside.

Then he and Mr. Wood carried the store safe and the store’s security camera out and retreated to a house belonging to Mr. Wood’s parents, where they tried to break open the safe. At the house, Mr. Wood bragged to a relative about the robbery.

A jury found Mr. Wood incompetent to stand trial after listening to testimony from a psychiatrist who said Mr. Wood was delusional and could not grasp reality. But after Mr. Wood spent a short stint in a mental hospital, a second jury found him competent. The judge did not let Mr. Wood’s lawyers cross-examine some witnesses at that hearing.

After his conviction, Mr. Wood wanted to represent himself in deliberations on his sentence, but the judge refused. Mr. Wood ordered his lawyers not to cross-examine any witnesses in the proceeding, a decision his lawyers at the time called “a gesture of suicide.” The jury voted for the death penalty.

Lucy Wilke, the Kerr County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Mr. Wood, did not return calls from a reporter. After Mr. Wood’s trial in 1988, she said that he was “not a dummy” and that the slaying was “cold-blooded, premeditated.”

Under the Texas “law of parties,” the question of whether Mr. Wood anticipated the murder is important. People who conspire to commit a felony are all responsible for an ensuing crime, like murder, if it can be shown they should have known it would happen.

The United States Supreme Court has upheld the principle, ruling in 1987 that the Constitution does not forbid the death penalty for a defendant “whose participation in a felony that results in murder is major and whose mental state is one of reckless indifference.”

At least seven people have been executed in the United States since 1985 for being accomplices in crimes during which one of their partners committed murder, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Three of those were executed in Texas.

David R. Dow, a law professor in Houston who oversees the Texas Defenders Project, which is trying to forestall the execution, said he doubted Mr. Wood was mentally competent to stand trial, much less that he knew in advance the murder would happen. In addition, Mr. Dow said, he did not receive proper legal representation during the sentencing phase.

“This case has in it virtually every feature that makes the death penalty system in Texas so scandalous,” he said.

John Council, senior reporter for Tex Parte Blog, says that Jeff Wood should not die and that prosecutors should not have sought the death penalty against him. He goes on to urge Perry to ignore the advice of the Board of Pardons and Paroles and grant him clemency anyhow. Perry has the power to grant a 30-day stay of execution without a recommendation from the BPP, so Perry could still take Council’s advice and do that much, then Wood’s lawyers could submit a new application to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which Perry could urge them to accept.

After four years of seeing countless murdered people as a crime reporter and another 14 writing about criminal courts, not many people would describe me as a bleeding heart — not even my mom. But I’ll go on record right here, Tex Parte readers, and make the case that Jeffrey Wood should not be put to death on Thursday. That’s because Wood didn’t kill anybody. According to the Houston Chronicle, he was the wheelman during a 1996 convenience store in Kerrville; another guy killed the clerk in the hold-up and has already been put to death. But under our famous law of parties, Wood is considered just as culpable under the Texas Penal Code as the shooter, so he got tried for the death penalty, and a jury gave it to him. More often than not, accomplices get threatened by police and prosecutors by the law of parties so they’ll agree to testify against the killer. But Wood had issues; he spent some time in a state mental hospital after a jury found him incompetent to stand trial. When he was later found competent to stand trial by a second jury, he tried to fire his lawyers in the middle of the trial, according to the Chronicle. Even though the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole voted 7-0 to not recommend that Gov. Rick Perry commute his sentence to life, Perry should do it anyway. He has my permission. Prosecutors shouldn’t have gone for death against Wood in the first place.

Please call the Governor of Texas at 512-463-2000
Office of the Governor Fax: (512) 463-1849
Tell the Governor to Issue a 30-day Stay of Execution to Jeff Wood
Jeff is Scheduled for Execution Thursday, Aug 21, so CALL NOW!

Send an Email to Governor Perry

More later.

Write the governor and Board of Pardons and Paroles and urge them to grant Jeff Wood clemency.

Please call the Governor of Texas at 512-463-2000
Office of the Governor Fax: (512) 463-1849
Tell the Governor and the Board of Pardons and Paroles to Grant Clemency to Jeff Wood
Jeff is Scheduled for Execution Thursday, Aug 21, so CALL NOW!

The Houston Chronicle reports in “Case of non-triggerman set to die raises questions“

His lawyers don’t dispute that convicted killer Jeffery Wood deserves punishment for his involvement in a robbery more than a dozen years ago where a clerk at a Texas Hill Country gas station convenience store was gunned down.

But Woods’ attorneys and supporters argue he doesn’t deserve to die for a murder that occurred while he was waiting in a car outside the store in Kerrville. They also point out that Daniel Reneau, the gunman who killed clerk Kriss Keeran with a fatal shot to the face, already has been executed.

“Someone answered for this in terms of the death penalty,” attorney Scott Sullivan said. “A non-triggerman shouldn’t get the death penalty.”

Wood, who turned 35 Tuesday, was set for execution Thursday in a case that again put under scrutiny a unique Texas law that makes accomplices as culpable as the killer in a capital murder case.

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.

Lawyers were in the courts seeking permission to hire mental health experts to pursue arguments that Wood is incompetent to be executed. They also were unsuccessful convincing the trial judge in the Wood’s case to withdraw Thursday’s execution date.

Sullivan said he would take the arguments to the appeals courts.

Attorneys also went to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles seeking clemency for Wood.

“For all the fault he does bear for Keeran’s untimely death (Wood) does not deserve to die,” they said in a petition to the board, which was expected to make a recommendation Tuesday to Gov. Rick Perry. “He has never taken a human life by his own hands.”

Wood’s case was being compared to another convicted Texas killer, Kenneth Foster, whose death sentence was commuted a year ago by Perry. Foster also was condemned under the law of parties, although Perry’s explanation for commuting Foster’s sentence to life in prison was that Foster and his co-defendant were tried together on capital murder charges for a slaying in San Antonio.