Diverse Range of Voices Call for Sparing Jeff Wood, Who Never Killed Anyone, from Execution in Texas

As his August 24 exe­cu­tion date approach­es, Jeffrey Wood​’s case has gar­nered mount­ing atten­tion from groups and indi­vid­u­als call­ing on the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Greg Abbott to com­mute Wood’s sen­tence. These diverse voic­es include a con­ser­v­a­tive Texas state rep­re­sen­ta­tive, a group of evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers, and the edi­to­r­i­al boards of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and sev­er­al Texas news­pa­pers, among others. 

Wood (pic­tured) was con­vict­ed under Texas’ ​“law of par­ties,” but he nei­ther killed nor intend­ed for any­one to be killed and, his sup­port­ers say, was not even aware the rob­bery in which a code­fen­dant killed a store clerk was going to occur. His tri­al also fea­tured mis­lead­ing tes­ti­mo­ny from Dr. James Grigson, who had been expelled from psy­chi­atric asso­ci­a­tions because of his uneth­i­cal tes­ti­mo­ny regard­ing the poten­tial future dan­ger­ous­ness of capital defendants. 

Republican state rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jeff Leach, a long-time death penal­ty sup­port­er, said ​“Jeffery Lee Wood’s case has caught my atten­tion unlike any death row inmate in my time in office has. …I sim­ply do not believe that Mr. Wood is deserv­ing of the death sen­tence. I can’t sit qui­et­ly by and not say anything.” 

Leach has spo­ken with Gov. Abbott’s office and the parole board about the case and is urg­ing oth­er leg­is­la­tors to con­tact the board in sup­port of com­mu­ta­tion before the board votes on Wood’s clemen­cy peti­tion on Monday. Gov. Abbott also received a peti­tion from a group of evan­gel­i­cal Christian lead­ers, who said ​“Our faith com­pels us to speak out in this case, where a loom­ing exe­cu­tion date threat­ens the life of an indi­vid­ual with sig­nif­i­cant men­tal impair­ments who nev­er should have been sen­tenced to death.” The 49 reli­gious lead­ers also not­ed the dis­pro­por­tion­al­i­ty of Wood’s sen­tence: ​“As the get­away dri­ver, Wood com­mit­ted a crime, but not one deserv­ing the death penalty.” 

A New York Times edi­to­r­i­al also urged clemen­cy for Wood and sharply cri­tiqued the law of par­ties. ​“The Law of Parties stands as a grotesque demon­stra­tion of how utter­ly arbi­trary cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is,” it said. ​“The only true course for jus­tice in Texas is for the law to be scrapped and Mr. Wood’s life to be spared.” 

Wood’s sup­port­ers say they will deliv­er a peti­tion to Gov. Abbott and the parole board Friday with thou­sands of sig­na­tures seek­ing com­mu­ta­tion of Wood’s sen­tence. Texas last com­mut­ed a death sen­tence in 2007 in the case of Kenneth Foster, a get­away dri­ver who, like Wood, had been con­vict­ed under the law of par­ties. [UPDATE: On August 19, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion to per­mit Wood to lit­i­gate his claims that the pros­e­cu­tion had pre­sent­ed false sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence and that the use of false tes­ti­mo­ny from Dr. Grigson vio­lat­ed due process.]