{"id":16603,"date":"2016-08-20T02:14:17","date_gmt":"2016-08-20T02:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=16603"},"modified":"2016-08-20T02:22:26","modified_gmt":"2016-08-20T02:22:26","slug":"court-shows-rare-compassion-halts-execution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=16603","title":{"rendered":"Court shows rare compassion, halts execution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"Jeff-Wood-Death-Row_jpg_800x1000_q100\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Jeff Wood isn’t going to die in the Texas execution chamber — at least not yet — thanks to a ruling from the state’s highest criminal appellate court.<\/p>\n

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals — which I guess you can call the Killin’ Court — has sent the case of Jeff Wood back to a lower court.<\/p>\n

Wood was scheduled to die because he was in a pickup truck while his friend actually killed someone while committing a robbery. But under Texas law and a provision called the “law of parties,” Wood was deemed as guilty as the shooter for the capital crime.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/08\/19\/execution-halted-jeff-wood-who-never-killed-anyone\/<\/a><\/p>\n

It amazes me that the CCA would halt the execution. This is the same body of jurists that at times has shown a remarkable lack of compassion for capital criminals. Sure, the criminals are bad guys and there are those who contend they don’t deserve anything from the state.<\/p>\n

A trial jury sentenced Wood to death for the murder that was actually committed by Daniel Reneau, who was executed in 2002, just six years after committing the crime.<\/p>\n

Wood’s role in the crime and the sentence he received has drawn national attention. Wood also drew support from an unlikely source, a conservative Republican lawmaker — state Rep. Jeff Leach of Plano — who intervened on Wood’s behalf while asking his sentence is commuted to life in prison.<\/p>\n

The law of parties is an unreasonable provision in Texas law that needs to be removed.<\/p>\n

That’s a fight for another day in another venue — which would be the Texas Legislature.<\/p>\n

As for\u00a0Wood, he’s been given a chance to defend himself once again. It fascinates me in the extreme that it would be the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that has exhibited a healthy dose of fairness.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/2016\/08\/law-of-parties-may-kill-the-wrong-man\/<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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Jeff Wood isn’t going to die in the Texas execution chamber — at least not yet — thanks to a ruling from the state’s highest criminal appellate court. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals — which I guess you can call the Killin’ Court — has sent the case of Jeff Wood back to a … Continue reading Court shows rare compassion, halts execution<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,18],"tags":[847,4530,4598,4653,4728],"class_list":["post-16603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","category-state-news","tag-capital-punishment","tag-tdcj","tag-texas-court-of-criminal-appeals","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16603"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16607,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16603\/revisions\/16607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}