Austin, Texas, Feb 3, 2017 / 02:53 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- One death sentence in Texas has prompted some legislators to rethink the state’s broad qualifications for the death penalty.
Jeff Wood, 43, was convicted for the 1996 murder of Kriss Keeran. Wood was sitting in a truck outside a convenience store in Kerrville, Texas when his friend Daniel Reneau entered the store to steal the safe. Reneau shot and killed Keeran, who was working there as a clerk.
Wood was convicted of murder under Texas' “law of parties” statute that says those who are responsible for a crime that results in death are equally responsible as the killer even if they did not directly commit the murder, the Texas Tribune reports.
The convict was scheduled to be executed in August 2016, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed his execution just six days before the event.
At the time, the Texas Catholic Conference said the stay “prevents a gross miscarriage of justice.”
“The public outcry against this execution illustrates broad agreement on the injustice and basic unfairness of the Texas law of parties,” the conference said Aug. 19.
A trial court is reviewing Wood's case. State Rep. Terry Canales, a Democrat, is sponsoring House Bill 316 to end death sentences for those convicted of capital murder under the law of parties.
“We've got to start somewhere when it comes to reforming the death penalty, and there's no better place to start than the law of parties,” Rep. Canales said, according to the Texas Tribune.
Republican State Rep. Jeff Leach plans, a death penalty proponent, opposes using the law of parties to secure a death sentence. He was involved in Wood's case.
“He may have suspected, he may have anticipated, but he didn't know,” Rep. Leach said. “You can't be executing people like that, you just can't. We can keep them in prison for life, but to execute them is an entirely different conversation.”
For his part, Rep. Leach is backing Canales' proposal and is considering his own bill.
Another legislator, State Rep. Harold Dutton, advocates the abolition of the death penalty. However, he is also backing a more limited bill to modify the law of parties rule. His proposal, House Bill 147, would still allow death penalty sentences for those who help a killer commit murder, but not necessarily in other cases.
Changes to state law would not be retroactive and would affect Wood's case.
Five people have been executed under Texas' “law of parties” statute. Five other states with similar laws have executed one person.
In Texas' Walker County, a man named John Falk is accused of capital murder under the law of parties. In a 2007 prison escape in Huntsville, another inmate killed a guard during the escape. The trial is in the jury selection stage.
Texas is a leader in executions among U.S. states. Last year it executed seven people, behind only Georgia, the Death Penalty Information Center reports.
Article Archive
Why some Texas legislators want to limit the death penalty
Related Articles • More Articles
A patient at the new Misky María Palliative Care Hospital located on the outskirts of Lima, Perú. / Credit: Asociación de las Bienaventuranzas (Association of the Beatitudes)ACI Prensa Staff, May 4, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).In the context of the recent news of the death of Ana Estrada, the first person to request and receive euthanasia in Peru, there is a contrasting story to tell on care for the dying in that country: that of a new Catholic hospital on the outskirts of Lima that provides palliative care, which extends the love of Christ to those in extreme poverty who are in the final stages of their lives.The beginning of the 'Misky María' HospitalIn 2021, Father Omar Sánchez Portillo, a priest known for his extensive charitable work in the district of Lurín (south of Lima) and founder of the Association of the Beatitudes, had the dream of building a center to serve, with the "sweetness of Mary," people in situations of abandonment and extreme poverty who have terminal illnesses...
President Joe Biden presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jesuit Father Greg Boyle on May 3, 2024. / Screenshot/public domainCNA Staff, May 3, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).The White House on Friday announced that Jesuit Father Greg Boyle, the founder of a prominent ministry dedicated to rehabilitating gang-affiliated youth, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom alongside 18 other recipients this afternoon. Boyle, ordained a priest in 1984, founded Homeboy Industries in 1992 while pastor of Dolores Mission, a Catholic church and school in an area that at one time had one of the highest concentrations of gang activity in Los Angeles. Today, Homeboy Industries claims to be the largest gang-intervention program in the United States.The successful ministry, which now operates nationwide, offers training and job skills to those formerly involved in gangs or in jail, as well as case management, tattoo removal, mental health and legal services, and GED completion.Wh...
Father Roger Landry, Catholic chaplain at Columbia University, discusses the protests at Columbia University in New York City on EWTN's "The World Over with Raymond Arroyo" on May 2, 2024. / Credit: EWTN News The World Over / ScreenshotWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 3, 2024 / 17:05 pm (CNA).Father Roger Landry, a Catholic chaplain at Columbia University, said on Thursday that the protests making national headlines at the New York City school are being organized in part by "explicitly communist" outside forces. "There is an instrumentalization of what's going on in Gaza to advance an agenda," he said. "And that is to deconstruct our present world order at which the United States is considered the top of that order."Speaking on EWTN's "The World Over with Raymond Arroyo," Landry said that he had been walking through the encampment nearly daily, conversing with student protesters and other "outside agitators." While he said he believes that many of the protesters we...