The Texas pros­e­cu­tor who sought and obtained the death penal­ty almost 20 years ago against Jeffery Wood (pic­tured), a man who nev­er killed any­one, has now asked that his sen­tence be reduced to life in prison. In a let­ter to the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole, sent in August and obtained December 7 by the Texas Tribune, Kerr County District Attorney Lucy Wilke asked the board to rec­om­mend that Governor Greg Abbott grant Wood clemen­cy and com­mute his sen­tence to life in prison. In 1998, Wilke — then an assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney — pros­e­cut­ed Wood for the 1996 mur­der of Kriss Keeran, a Kerrville con­ve­nience store clerk who was shot to death by Wood’s room­mate, Daniel Reneau, while Reneau was rob­bing the store. Reneau was exe­cut­ed. Wood, who has denied that he had any knowl­edge that Reneau was going to com­mit a rob­bery or had tak­en a gun into the store, was sit­ting out­side in the truck when the shoot­ing occurred. He was pros­e­cut­ed for mur­der and sen­tenced to death under Texas’s felony-mur­der statute, com­mon­ly known as the law of par­ties, which holds an accom­plice liable for the actions of every oth­er par­tic­i­pant in the crime, even if the accom­plice did not know and did not intend that a mur­der would occur. Wood’s case drew nation­al atten­tion when the state sched­uled his exe­cu­tion for August 2016. At that time, a broad range of groups, includ­ing evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers, state rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and edi­to­r­i­al boards, called for Wood to be spared. More than 50 House mem­bers of both par­ties signed on to a let­ter writ­ten by con­ser­v­a­tive Rep. Jeff Leach ask­ing Gov. Abbott and the par­dons board to reduce Wood’s sen­tence. Six days before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed Wood’s exe­cu­tion on unre­lat­ed grounds, send­ing his case back to the Kerr County tri­al court to review Wood’s claim his death sen­tence was the prod­uct of false pre­dic­tions of future dan­ger­ous­ness by a psy­chi­a­trist, Dr. James Grigson, who had been expelled from the American Psychiatric Association and Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians for his unpro­fes­sion­al prac­tices. Had I known about Dr. Grigson’s issues with said orga­ni­za­tions, I would not have used him as the State’s expert wit­ness in this case on the issue of future dan­ger­ous­ness,” Wilke wrote in the let­ter. Although Wilke active­ly pur­sued the death penal­ty against Wood, she told the par­dons board that the penal­ty now appears to be exces­sive.” While I am aware that requests for clemen­cy in Death Penalty Capital Murder cas­es are nor­mal­ly con­sid­ered when there is an exe­cu­tion date pend­ing,” Wilke wrote, I respect­ful­ly ask that you con­sid­er this request for com­mu­ta­tion of sen­tence and act on it now, in the absence of such an exe­cu­tion date, in the inter­est of jus­tice and judi­cial econ­o­my.” Along with the fact that he was­n’t the shoot­er, Wilke cit­ed Wood’s below-aver­age IQ of 80, his his­to­ry of non­vi­o­lence, and Dr. Grigson’s tes­ti­mo­ny as grounds for clemen­cy. The let­ter was co-signed by Kerrville Police Chief David Knight, who was an offi­cer at the time of the mur­der, and District Court Judge Keith Williams, who is pre­sid­ing over Wood’s chal­lenge to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the pros­e­cu­tion’s use of false tes­ti­mo­ny and false sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence” from Dr. Grigson.

In 2009, the Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles rec­om­mend­ed clemen­cy for Robert Lee Thompson, who also had been con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death under the law of par­ties. Governor Rick Perry reject­ed the rec­om­men­da­tion and Thompson was exe­cut­ed. A bill was intro­duced in the 2017 leg­isla­tive ses­sion to make those con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der under the law of par­ties inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty, but the bill did not pass. 

(J. McCullough, Texas dis­trict attor­ney who pros­e­cut­ed Jeff Wood now wants him off death row,” The Texas Tribune, December 7, 2017.) Read District Attorney Wilke’s let­ter here. See Arbitrariness and Clemency.

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