Appeals court halts scheduled Texas execution

The Texas Tribune reports that Jeffery Wood was granted a stay of execution on his 43rd birthday on Friday, just six days before he was scheduled to be executed for the robbery in which he killed no one. Wood’s mental capacity has been at the forefront of the argument against his execution, but was never brought before the jury that imposed his death sentence. It also has captured attention across the US over Wood’s culpability in the shooting of a convenience store clerk, his mental competence and criticism surrounding his original trial.

The court issued a two-page order requesting Wood’s case be sent back to the original trial court where his death sentence, but not his conviction, may be thrown out.

According to CNN, the order claimed “false and misleading testimony” presented by the prosecution’s psychiatrist, as well as the resulting judgment violated due process because it was based on a “false psychiatric testimony concerning [Wood’s] future dangerousness”.

Wood’s attorney, Jared Tyler, who had sought the stay last month, said “the court did the right thing” in halting the execution and returning the case to a state district court in Kerrville, Kerr County, to have the claims resolved. He was convicted under a Texas law that makes a participant in a capital murder crime equally culpable, even though it was Wood’s friend who shot a store clerk.

Mr Tyler argued his client was unaware a robbery was taking place as he sat in an unarmed pickup truck outside the petrol station, while prosecutors insisted Wood would have known the clerk might have been shot by his former roommate, Daniel Reneau. The man who pulled the trigger was executed in 2002.

“Justice is not served by executing Mr”.

A United States court granted a stay out of execution to a Texas man who was sentenced to death over a deadly robbery in which he did not kill anyone, local media reported.

Wood is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday.

Leach, however, said that’s not what troubles him. A federal judge previously stayed [NYT report] Wood’s execution in 2008 to grant a hearing on whether he was mentally competent.