Texas Death Row: Where Innocence is Irrelevant
On August 21, Texas will execute Jeff Wood for the murder of Kris
Keeran, even though there is a consensus that Wood did not murder,
intend to murder, or know that a murder was going to take place. Wood
was sentenced to death under the Law of Parties, section 7.02 of the
Texas Penal Code, which holds co-defendants criminally responsible
for the same crime if they acted as conspirators. Put another way,
the Law of Parties allows for guilt-by-association. In Wood’s case,
he was forced to drive a getaway vehicle after the actual killer,
Daniel Reneau, shot Keeran during a convenience store robbery in
1996. In fact, Wood was not even in the building when the killing
occurred. Furthermore, Bill Bunker, the store’s assistant manager who
helped plot and even encouraged the robbery, was never charged with
any crime.

Reneau was executed in 2002, and Keeran’s father has asked that
Wood’s sentence be commuted. This week, Jeff’s family and friends,
activists, and media from around the world are calling on Governor
Perry to spare his life. Perry set a precedent for this last summer
when he commuted the sentence of Kenneth Foster, who received the
death penalty under similar circumstances. If he is to be consistent,
Perry must grant Wood clemency as well. He needs to show the world
that he has a conscience, especially after what happened earlier this
month, when he went ahead with the executions of two foreign
nationals who had been denied consular assistance, a right enshrined
in the 1963 Vienna Convention.

But even if Wood’s sentence is commuted, his example raises hard
questions about the Law of Parties, indeed about capital punishment
itself. The statute is clearly being used in an unjust and abusive
manner when bit players pay the ultimate price. It is time to demand
that our state’s legislators correct this monstrous injustice.

The examples of Kenneth Foster and Jeff Wood are not flukes in an
otherwise fair system, though. Foster and Wood represent the sad tale
of most death row inmates: indigence and poverty, inadequate
representation, withheld testimony, forced confessions, and so on.
Even if capital punishment were fair, its overall application reeks
of bias and flaws, especially in Texas, which leads the nation in
executions. Furthermore, the death penalty is not a deterrent to
violent crime, and study after study has shown that it actually costs
taxpayers more money than life in prison without possibility of
parole, after court fees and prison time are factored in.

An anti-death penalty sentiment is gripping the nation. Currently,
this is due mainly to the fact that more and more Americans realize
there are serious problems when it comes to meting out the ultimate
punishment. However, the problem ultimately rests in the very fact
that states have been given the right to kill people, not in any
particular flaws with the death penalty’s application.

The use of violence, force, or coercion by the state demands a high
burden of proof. In this case, it falls on the state to show that the
death penalty can be justified only in terms of what is necessary to
guarantee the population’s safety or survival. The right to kill
people, in other words, is such a powerful concession to the state
that it cannot be justified intrinsically. As it happens, there are
viable alternatives to the death penalty that also prevent murderers
from being released into the general population: namely, life in
prison without parole. There is no reason to execute people in the
name of protecting others.

It is time that we enter the 21st century—nay, the 20th century—by
abolishing capital punishment now and forever. Start by helping to
save Jeff Wood this week, but do not let it end there.

DC Tedrow is a member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. For
more information, please visit the Save Jeff Wood website.

http://texasdeathpenalty.blogspot.com/2008/08/texas-death-row-where-innocence-is.html