Last May, TMN helped John Holbrook bring his exhibit of photos of people on Texas death row to the Texas state capitol. Now, his exhibit is on tour. Here is an interview he did on a Swiss radio station.

Texans may have a popular image of gun-loving death penalty advocates, but private investigator-turned-photographer John Holbrook is a long way from that stereotype. He believes passionately the death penalty should be abolished and is currently touring the world with his collection of photos featuring death row inmates. WRS’s Conor Lennon met with him yesterday and asked where his certainty on the issue comes from:

Related links

• John Holbrook’s website

Bobby Wayne Woods, 44, was executed Thursday, December 3, 2009 in Huntsville, Texas. He was the 24th person executed in Texas in 2009, the 208th executed since Rick Perry became governor and the 447th executed in Texas since 1982. There have been, so far, 49 executions in the U.S. in 2009; Texas conducted 49 percent of those 2009 executions. There are no more executions scheduled in Texas in 2009. Five executions are already scheduled in Texas for 2010, including two in January.

From the AP:

A 44-year-old Texas man has been executed for raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl, despite his attorneys’ pleas that he was too mentally impaired to qualify for capital punishment.

Bobby Wayne Woods received lethal injection Thursday evening moments after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt his execution. His lawyers had argued Woods was mentally impaired, making him ineligible for execution, and that previous appeals to spare Woods’ life were unsuccessful because of shoddy work by his lawyer at the time.

Woods was convicted of killing Sarah Patterson. She and her 9-year-old brother were snatched from their home near Fort Worth in April 1997. Her brother was beaten and left for dead but survived to testify against Woods.

Call Texas Governor Rick Perry and leave a voice message at 512 463 1782 or email him through his website at http://governor.state.tx.us/contact to protest today’s scheduled execution of Bobby Woods, whose execution should be stayed and commuted to life because of his mental retardation.

If Wood is executed, he will be the 24th person executed in 2009 in Texas and the 49th execution in Texas in 2009, which means Texas will have conducted 49 percent of all executions in the U.S. so far this year.

Read more in the article “Video from Death Row: Possibly Retarded Prisoner Faces Execution” by Renee Feltz in the Texas Observer:

The Texas State Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday rejected clemency for Bobby Wayne Woods, a man who may be mentally retarded. The Texas Observer has been following his appeal because his attorney, now disqualified from handling death penalty cases, failed to provide Woods with adequate legal council. There is also evidence that Woods is not fit to be executed under a 2002 Supreme Court ruling that bans the execution of mentally retarded prisoners. The videos below were provided to the parole board, but they decided to allow the execution to go forward. His new attorney, Maurie Levin, advises that she has filed an appeal to the Supreme Court that also includes the videos as evidence of Woods’ limited capacity. If the Supreme Court rejects the appeal, Woods is scheduled to die on Dec. 3.

The Observer will continue to update this site as the case develops.

EARLIER: When Texas reopens its execution chamber after a Thanksgiving break, the first man set to die may be mentally retarded. A 2002 Supreme Court ruling bans the execution of mentally retarded prisoners. But after years of being represented by a discredited attorney who ruined any chance for an appeal based on his disabilities, the fate of Bobby Wayne Woods rests with the state Board of Pardons and Paroles which can recommend clemency or a reprieve to Gov. Perry. “It’s a long shot at best,” Woods’ attorney Maurie Levin says of the clemency request, “but I think it’s very important to do.”

Test scores during his childhood and incarceration show Bobby Woods has an IQ that hovers at or below 70 — the cut-off point for mental retardation. He reads at a second grade level and writes childlike letters — many of which are photocopied and presented as evidence in his clemency request. Levin asked the board to grant a 60-day reprieve so that she can produce a videotape of Woods “to adequately present a full picture of his limitations.” She has sued Texas prison officials over their refusal to allow her to record such a video herself. The Texas Observer captured Woods on tape last week during an on-camera interview, and now you can watch the video that Levin wants the clemency board to see.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Texas Moratorium Network is having a drawing for someone to win a phone call from Sister Helen Prejean, author of “Dead Man Walking” and one of the world’s leading advocates for abolishing the death penalty. Invite your friends to become a fan of the Texas Moratorium Network Facebook page and to enter the drawing, which will be held on December 15. It is free to enter.

Click here to enter the drawing.

The second place prize is a signed copy of the book “Mortal Justice: A True Story of Murder and Vindication” by Jeanette Popp and Wanda Evans, which tells the story of Jeanette’s daughter Nancy’s murder, the wrongful conviction of two innocent men Chris Ochoa and Richard Danziger, their eventual exoneration, the subsequent conviction of the real killer, and Jeanette’s long activism against the death penalty, including a jailhouse meeting with the real killer and her successful efforts to prevent him from being sentenced to death.

“Rick Perry continues to play politics with the death penalty. He should have accepted the recommendation of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute the death sentence of Robert Thompson. It would not surprise me if Rick Perry one day replaces the members of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles who voted in favor of clemency for Thompson, just like he replaced his own appointees on the Texas Forensic Science Commission in the midst of their investigation into the Todd Willingham case. Rick Perry is using the death penalty issue to endear himself to right-wing voters in the upcoming Republican primary, but his actions do not reflect the priorities of mainstream Texans who are increasingly concerned about the fairness of the Texas death penalty system”, said Scott Cobb of Texas Moratorium Network.

Cobb continued, “In an Orwellian application of language repurposing, Governor Rick Perry and many of his supporters would like the public to believe that people sentenced to death under the Law of Parties are “killers”, but a “killer” is “one who kills”, not “one whose accomplice killed”. People such as Jeff Wood and Kenneth Foster, Jr, are not killers. They never killed anyone and in a fair system of justice, they should never have received death sentences”.

There is widespread support in Texas for ending the practice of sentencing people to death under the law of parties. In the last session of the Texas Legislature, the Texas House of Representatives passed a bill (HB 2267 by Terri Hodge) that would have banned executions of people convicted solely under the Law of Parties. The Law of Parties provision of HB 2267 was taken out of the bill in the Senate Criminal Justice Committee after Governor Perry threatened to veto it if the bill was sent to him in the same form that it had passed the House. The revised version, which would have only required separate trials for co-defendants in capital trials, then died in the Senate when it did not come up for a vote on the floor before the deadline.

Two family members of a person on death row who was sentenced to death under the Law of Parties issued statements regarding Rick Perry’s refusal to accept the recommendation of clemency for Robert Thompson. Jeff Wood remains on death row in Texas after receiving a stay in 2008 from a federal judge.

Terri Been, whose brother Jeff Wood is on Texas death row convicted under the Law of Parties said “I must say that I was surprised to hear that the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles grew a conscious and voted in favor of clemency for Robert Thompson, since they unanimously voted for the execution of my brother, Jeff Wood, who was also convicted under the law of parties despite the fact that he is factually innocent of murder. However, I was not surprised to hear Perry didn’t jump on board the clemency train as the man has no sense of true justice. After all, it was Perry who killed House Bill 2267, which would have ended the death penalty as a sentencing option for those who never committed murder. It is a very sad day, and I grieve not only for Robert Thompson, his family and for the family of the victim killed by Thompson’s accomplice, but I grieve for the lack of hope that I feel because of Governor Perry’s latest decision. To kill is wrong, but to kill someone who was not convicted of actually killing anyone is INJUSTICE in the simplest form”.

Gavin Been, nephew of Jeff Wood and president of Kids Against the Death Penalty said, “KADP members mourn for Robert Thompson and for the injustice taking place in Texas today. Governor Perry strikes again by condemning another person to death who is factually innocent of murder, and we are appalled that our fellow citizens continue to turn a blind eye to Perry’s mismanagement of power. We know that Texans favor “tough on crime” laws, but we were taught that laws and punishment were supposed to be equal and fair. How is it fair that people like, Jeff Wood, or in this case Robert Thompson, who are factually innocent of murder, should face execution while there are REPEAT offenders of murder and rape in general population, who have the right to be paroled, and are given a second chance? To sentence a person to death who never committed a murder is NOT justice; it is murder itself, and Mr. Perry should be ashamed of himself for allowing another murder to take place”.

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