The following statement by Kenneth Foster’s grandfather, Lawrence Foster, was read at the Save Jeff Wood rally in San Antonio on August 2, 2008.

I really would like to be with you today and show my support for Jeff Wood and his family. Unfortunately I had a commitment to take one of Kenneth’s friends from France to the prison to visit him this weekend, so I cannot be there.

Jeff’s case is so much like Kenneth’s case; it is like a mirror image. I remember thinking last summer that Texas had already executed the killer and yet they wanted Kenneth. It is the same for Jeff. The killer has been executed. What more does Texas want? Jeff is not guilty of anything and wasn’t event in the store. This is nothing but revenge, pure and simple. What do they want? Two for one? Two people to be executed for one murder?

Last summer I was constantly praying to God to prevent a murder of an innocent person. I told God that he knew Kenneth was innocent and that he couldn’t allow Kenneth to be punished for something he did not do. Now this summer they want to do the same thing. There’s no logic in this. Jeff Wood is not guilty of anything. What type of justice system do we have that would kill an innocent person?

What I have been through with my grandson facing an execution last summer for something he did not do is just what the family of Jeff Wood is going through now. It is devastating to have a child that is fixing to be murdered by the state. It is awful. It is really nothing but revenge.

There is no way that anyone can understand what’s happening when someone’s son or brother or father or husband is being set to be murdered. It is so devastating and no family should have to go through what ours did and what Jeff’s family is going through now. Killing does not solve a problem but makes things worse. What a person goes through waiting for a loved one to be killed is just terror. Texas would not be killing just Jeff. Look at his family that loves him dearly. They are being punished more.

I have had many, many restless days and nights. Not an hour goes by, even now, that I am not thinking of what could have happened if Kenneth had been executed. I had confidence in my faith that Kenneth wouldn’t be executed for something he didn’t do. It is such a blessing to see my grandson still living.

Now, today I just hope and pray that no other family has to go though what we have been through. I pray for the family of Jeff Wood and hope that justice will come for them also.

Whatever time what Jeff has spent incarcerated is time enough. He should not be executed but should be set free. I don’t believe that the majority of people in Texas would agree with executing Jeff Wood.

The law of parties is merely for the DA. The law of parties is to win convictions but has nothing to do with justice. The law of parties should be revised or eliminated.

Why do they want to take Jeff’s life? Where is justice in Texas today? It is sure not in killing Jeff Wood. His execution should be stopped today.

At last weekend’s rally to Save Jeff Wood several of his nieces, nephews and their friends attended wearing t-shirts that read KADP, Kids Against the Death Penalty. The San Antonio Express News mentioned them in their story on the rally:

Wood’s relatives staged the rally with the Texas Moratorium Network, which wants a two-year moratorium on all death penalty cases. A second rally for Wood is planned for Aug. 16 in Austin.

Meanwhile, younger relatives have joined a group called Kids Against the Death Penalty.

“I’m here because Jeff Wood is innocent and on death row for a murder that he didn’t commit,” said Gavin Been, 11, Wood’s nephew.

Below is a video of them speaking with Capital-X about why they started KADP. These kids are amazingly articulate about how they feel about the death penalty.

Texas Vs. The World in Capital Case

Medellin set to die Tuesday despite World Court order
By Jim Forsyth
Monday, August 4, 2008

It’s again Texas versus the world in an issue involving the state’s active use of capital punishment, as Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles is considering executing a vicious killer despite orders from the Mexican government and the World Court of Justice to commute the man’s sentence, and requests from former Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Secretary of State Rice not to follow through with the execution, 1200 WOAI news reports.

Jose Medellin viciously raped, slashed, stomped, and beat two teenaged girls to death as part of a gang initiation in Houston in 1993. The problem…when Medellin, who is a Mexican citizen who was in the U.S. illegally, was arrestd, he was not granted the right to consult with the Mexican consulate after his arrest, a right granted by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, a 1963 treaty.

“We endanger the lives and the safety and the access to justice of Americans when they are detained overseas,” said Scott Cobb, President of the Texas Moratorium Network, a group which is urging the state to place all executions on hold while issues of due process are considered.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Perry said the Board of Pardons and Paroles is considering the case and will come up with a recommendation tomorrow. The governor can agree to the recommendation or can reject it.

“The World Court has no jurisdiction here,” the spokeswoman said. “We re concerned about upholding Texas law, and that’s what we’re doing.”

Medellin has asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a 270 day stay to allow the legislature to consider a bill to be introduced by State Senator Rodney Ellis (D-Houston) which would require that Texas follow the Vienna Protocol.

Cobb says if Texas executes Medellin, it will make it more difficult for Texas to hold nations like Iran and North Korea to account for treaties they sign.

“Some people in the U.S. have criticized other countries for violating treaties which they have signed with the United States, and here we are violating a treaty that we have signed.”

Cobb and other death penalty opponents say Texans may even be singled out for rough treatment by nations upset over the state’s liberal use of the death penalty.

There are 51 inmates in similar situations on death rows across the U.S.

Inmate’s supporters appeal to governor

MARIANA QUEVEDO/mquevedo@express-news.net
San Antonio Express News, August 3, 2008

Kristin Wood, the wife of death row inmate Jeffrey Wood, holds sister-in-law Terri Been at a rally at the Alamo. Jeffrey Wood is scheduled to be executed Aug. 21. A second rally is planned for Aug. 16 in Austin.

Eva Ruth Moravec – Express-News

Supporters of Texas inmate Jeffrey Wood, scheduled to die Aug. 21 for the 1996 murder of a Kerrville convenience store clerk, are hoping Gov. Rick Perry can see how similar Wood’s case is to that of an inmate whose death sentence he commuted to life in prison last year.

“It was the exact same thing,” said Wood’s wife, Kristin. “He has faith, especially that the truth will come out eventually.”

Jeffrey Wood and his former roommate Daniel Reneau were convicted of murdering Kris Keeran, a clerk at the Kerrville Gold Star Texaco.

According to court testimony, Reneau held up the store . on Jan. 2, 1996, and shot Keeran after he refused to participate in a plan to stage a robbery and split the proceeds. Wood drove the getaway car. In a taped interview with a Kerrville police detective, Wood called Keeran “a real good friend.”

Wood’s defense team claimed he was unaware that a robbery, let alone murder, would occur.

Kerr County Assistant District Attorney Lucy Wilke, formerly Lucy Cavazos, won a conviction against Wood under the law of parties statute, which makes someone who participates in an act that leads to homicide as culpable as the actual killer.

In a letter sent in July to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Wilke wrote, “Mr. Wood was the mastermind of this senseless murder. It was Wood who showed his teenage brother the surveillance video tape depicting the murder, while laughing, and then ordered his brother to destroy the tape.”

On Saturday, about 20 people gathered in front of the Alamo to rally for Wood’s life, begging Perry for help.

Last August, Perry commuted a death sentence to life in prison for inmate Kenneth Foster Jr., also convicted under the law of parties statute.

“Jeff’s case is so much like Kenneth’s case; it is like a mirror image,” Lawrence Foster, grandfather of Kenneth Foster Jr., wrote in a statement read at the rally. “I remember thinking last summer that Texas had already executed the killer and yet they wanted Kenneth. It is the same for Jeff.”

The cases are so similar that Norway native Kristin Wood, 29, has found comfort and support from the Foster camp, including from Foster’s wife, Tasha, a 24-year-old Netherlands citizen.

Wood’s relatives staged the rally with the Texas Moratorium Network, which wants a two-year moratorium on all death penalty cases. A second rally for Wood is planned for Aug. 16 in Austin.

Meanwhile, younger relatives have joined a group called Kids Against the Death Penalty.

“I’m here because Jeff Wood is innocent and on death row for a murder that he didn’t commit,” said Gavin Been, 11, Wood’s nephew.

According to the Texas Moratorium Network, attorney Jared Tyler with the Texas Defender Service is preparing a clemency package to submit on Wood’s behalf.

The victim’s father, Charles Keeran, also would like to see Wood live.

“The death penalty, to me, is the easy way out,” he said. “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.”