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Jeff Wood Has Been Granted a Stay of Execution By a Court. The State is not appealing today. There will be no execution today!
We will still gather at the Texas Capitol in Austin today to celebrate and for a demonstration to urge that Jeff Wood's death sentence be permanently commuted
More information on the stay:"With all due respect, a system that requires an insane person to first make 'a substantial showing' of his own lack of mental capacity without the assistance of counsel or a mental health expert, in order to obtain such assistance is, by definition, an insane system," U.S District Court Judge Garcia wrote in the order issuing the stay.
Call the Governor of Texas at 512-463-2000 and Urge Him to Grant a Stay of Execution for Jeff Wood
Jeff Wood is waiting to die on Texas Death Row with an execution date of August 21st, 2008. Jeff was charged under the Law of Parties, and was not the shooter in this crime. Jeff could not anticipate that a murder would occur.The actual shooter in this case has already been executed by the state of Texas.
Below is a letter from ten Texas legislators to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles urging them to grant clemency to Jeff Wood. In addition to this letter, other legislators have told us that they are writing their own letters, including Rep. Dora Olivo and Rep. Mike Villareal.
Ms. Rissie Owens Chair Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles
Members of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles Executive Clemency Section 8610 Shoal Creek Boulevard Austin, Texas 78757
Dear Chairwoman Owens and Board Members:
We are writing to urge the Board to recommend commuting Jeffrey Wood's death sentence to a life sentence. Further, we hope that Governor Peny would act favorably on such a recommendation. As we are certain you are aware, Mr. Wood is set to be executed on August 21,2008.
Mr. Wood was convicted of capital murder under the Texas Law of Parties. It appears evident that he neither killed, nor anticipated that Daniel Earl Reneau would kill, Kris Keeran. He did not anticipate that a murder would occur and was not in the store when the murder took place. The shooter, Danny Reneau, has already been executed for this crime. When asked on death row to identify the shooter, Reneau had a oneword reply, "Me."
This case is similar to the case of Kenneth Foster, whose death sentence under the Law of Parties was commuted by Govemor Perry in 2007.
While Jeffrey Wood deserves to be imprisoned for his participation in the robbery, he should not be executed. We find the facts of his case, as well as the application of the Law of Parties, to be particularly bothersome.
The death penalty is supposed to be reserved for the worst of the worst. It seems clear to us that Jeffrey Wood is not a man for whom the death penalty should be applied. We respectfully request that clemency be granted.
Thank you very much for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Rep. Elliott Naishtat District 49
Rep. Donna Howard District 48
Rep. Lon Burnam District 90
Ruth Jones McClendon District 120
Rep. Alma Allen District 131
Rep. Eddie Rodriguez District 51
Rep. Sylvester Tumer District 139
Rep. Harold Dutton District 142
Rep. Jessica Farrar District 148
Rep. Mark Strama District 50
cc: The Honorable Rick Perry Governor of Texas State Capitol 2S.1
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What is the Law of Parties?
Posted by admin on: Wednesday 06 August @ 02:37:12
Section 7.02 of the Texas Penal Code outlines the following:
A person is criminally responsible for an offense committed by the conduct of another if "acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense he solicits, encourages, directs, aids or attempts to aid the other persons to commit the offense" or "If, in the attempt to carry out a conspiracy to commit one felony, another felony is committed by one of the conspirators, all conspirators are guilty of the felony actually committed, though having no intent to commit it, if the offense was committed in furtherance of the unlawful purpose and was one that should have been anticipated as a result of the carrying out of the conspiracy." Article 37.071(b)(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedures permits the infliction of the death penalty only if the jury believes beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant "intended to kill the deceased or another or anticipated that a human life would be taken."
PARTIES AND THE US SUPREME COURT The US Supreme Court held that imposition of the death penalty on a person who aids and abets a felony in the course of which a murder is committed by others but who does not himself kill, attempt to kill, or intend to kill violates the 8th and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution. (Edmund v. Florida 458 US 782, 1982) Five years after the Edmund decision the Supreme Court created an exception to this general rule for those guilty of a murder that occurs in the commission of a felony who do not kill or intend to kill, but who have major personal involvement in the felony and display a reckless indifference to human life. (Tison v. Arizona, 481 US 137, 1987)
THE STANDARD NECESSARY TO DEMONSTRATE RECKLESS INDIFFERENCE TO HUMAN LIFE The Delaware Superior Court observed: "Major participation and reckless indifference to human life are more likely to be found where an accomplice defendant is present at and before a killing which involved considerable deliberation and the killing is preceded by physical or psychological abuse of the victim, including assault, torture or other acts of cruelty. Such a finding is less likely where the killing is sudden or impulsive and it is unclear that the defendant actually caused the victim’s death."
The application of Texas Penal Code 7.02, in combination with Texas Code of Criminal Procedures Article 37.071(b)(2), is unjust and unconstitutional because it permits the death penalty to be imposed for complicity in a capital crime without requiring a finding that the person intended to kill or that he was a major participant in a crime where he showed reckless disregard for human life. In other words, neglecting to anticipate another actor’s commission of murder in the course of a felony is all that is required to make a Texas defendant death-eligible, thus immensely lowering the standard the US Supreme Court has set. This is allowing the death penalty to be applied in a most immoral and liberal way
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San Antonio Express News Report on Rally for Jeff Wood
MARIANA QUEVEDO/mquevedo@express-news.net Kristin Wood, the wife of death row inmate Jeffrey Wood, holds sister-in-law Terri Been at a rally at the Alamo. Jeffrey Wood is scheduled to be executed Aug. 21. A second rally is planned for Aug. 16 in Austin.
Recommend recommend 0 Eva Ruth Moravec - Express-News
Supporters of Texas inmate Jeffrey Wood, scheduled to die Aug. 21 for the 1996 murder of a Kerrville convenience store clerk, are hoping Gov. Rick Perry can see how similar Wood's case is to that of an inmate whose death sentence he commuted to life in prison last year.
"It was the exact same thing," said Wood's wife, Kristin. "He has faith, especially that the truth will come out eventually."
Jeffrey Wood and his former roommate Daniel Reneau were convicted of murdering Kris Keeran, a clerk at the Kerrville Gold Star Texaco.
According to court testimony, Reneau held up the store . on Jan. 2, 1996, and shot Keeran after he refused to participate in a plan to stage a robbery and split the proceeds. Wood drove the getaway car. In a taped interview with a Kerrville police detective, Wood called Keeran "a real good friend."
Wood's defense team claimed he was unaware that a robbery, let alone murder, would occur.
Kerr County Assistant District Attorney Lucy Wilke, formerly Lucy Cavazos, won a conviction against Wood under the law of parties statute, which makes someone who participates in an act that leads to homicide as culpable as the actual killer.
In a letter sent in July to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Wilke wrote, "Mr. Wood was the mastermind of this senseless murder. It was Wood who showed his teenage brother the surveillance video tape depicting the murder, while laughing, and then ordered his brother to destroy the tape."
On Saturday, about 20 people gathered in front of the Alamo to rally for Wood's life, begging Perry for help.
Last August, Perry commuted a death sentence to life in prison for inmate Kenneth Foster Jr., also convicted under the law of parties statute.
"Jeff's case is so much like Kenneth's case; it is like a mirror image," Lawrence Foster, grandfather of Kenneth Foster Jr., wrote in a statement read at the rally. "I remember thinking last summer that Texas had already executed the killer and yet they wanted Kenneth. It is the same for Jeff."
The cases are so similar that Norway native Kristin Wood, 29, has found comfort and support from the Foster camp, including from Foster's wife, Tasha, a 24-year-old Netherlands citizen.
Wood's relatives staged the rally with the Texas Moratorium Network, which wants a two-year moratorium on all death penalty cases. A second rally for Wood is planned for Aug. 16 in Austin.
Meanwhile, younger relatives have joined a group called Kids Against the Death Penalty.
"I'm here because Jeff Wood is innocent and on death row for a murder that he didn't commit," said Gavin Been, 11, Wood's nephew.
According to the Texas Moratorium Network, attorney Jared Tyler with the Texas Defender Service is preparing a clemency package to submit on Wood's behalf.
The victim's father, Charles Keeran, also would like to see Wood live.
"The death penalty, to me, is the easy way out," he said. "If you had to be down there and get up every morning, as hot and humid as it is, knowing that you are going to spend the rest of your life locked up under those conditions, that's punishment. That's what I think my son would want for him."
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Jordan Smith Reports on Jeff Wood in Austin Chronicle
Jordan Smith of the Austin Chronicle reports in this week's issue on the case of Jeff Wood. From "Those Who Are About to Die":
Wood did not fire the fatal shot and did not participate in the robbery that preceded the Jan. 2, 1996, murder. Nonetheless, Wood was sentenced to die, based on the state's "law of parties," also known as the "conspirator liability" statute. The law provides that if two or more people agree to commit one crime but in the process commit another, each person is guilty of the crime committed – if the crime was "one that should have been anticipated." This is a more nebulous form of traditional accomplice liability (aiding and abetting) that requires the state to prove specific, individual culpability. The difference here is in intent and foresight: Accomplice liability requires intent; conspiracy requires only a finding that the crime was foreseeable.
In Wood's case, the state argued that he had planned with Reneau to rob the Texaco and therefore was responsible for Keeran's death. But it isn't at all clear that Wood was planning to rob the store. Wood told police that he'd heard Reneau talking with someone else (the store manager, Been says) about a possible robbery – the place had taken in $17,000 over Christmas, and the pair speculated that a similarly hefty stash could be expected just after New Year's Eve, since the bank holiday would mean the money would not yet have been deposited – but Wood also said he believed the talk was "bullshit in the breeze." (Family members have said that Wood did initially talk about robbing the store, along with Reneau, the store manager, and Keeran, but insisted that Wood, Keeran, and the manager all dismissed the idea.)
Critics have argued that Texas' use of the law of parties unconstitutionally broadens the field of death-eligible defendants; the death penalty, they argue, should be reserved for the most culpable and most heinous crimes. In fact, Texas is the only state that uses a conspiracy statute to make defendants eligible for the death penalty. "To pass constitutional scrutiny," Wood's attorney Scott Sullivan argued on appeal, "a sentencing statute must not only narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty, it must also ensure sentencing decisions are based upon an individual inquiry" of culpability. Texas' law of parties fails to do that, he wrote. The state, however, argues that the law of parties is not implicated in a decision to impose death: "The Texas capital murder scheme does not allow an individual to be put to death merely for being a party because the law-of-parties cannot be applied in answering the special issues" that jurors must answer, argued then-Bexar Co. Assistant District Attorney Lucy Cavazos. A death sentence is assessed only if jurors find that a defendant would pose a continuing threat to society and that there is no mitigating evidence that might lessen the defendant's culpability. Yet Cavazos' argument evades the fact that without the law-of-parties, defendants like Wood wouldn't be eligible for death in the first place. The courts have sided with the state.
Wood's case is similar to that of Kenneth Foster, who was sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of Michael LaHood by a companion, based on the Bexar Co. district attorney's use of the conspiracy statute. Foster was scheduled to die last year but was spared when Gov. Rick Perry accepted the recommendation of the Board of Pardons and Paroles and commuted his sentence to life in prison. "I believe the right and just decision is to commute Foster's sentence," he said. Perry did not directly implicate the law of parties in explaining his decision but did raise the issue of culpability, saying he was "concerned" that state law allowed Foster to be tried jointly with triggerman Maurecio Brown.
Jeff Wood's family and friends are holding a rally to Save Jeff Wood this Saturday, Aug 2, in San Antonio in the plaza in front of the Alamo.
The Executive Director of Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation has written a letter to Governor Perry and the Board of Pardons and Paroles asking that they grant clemency to Jeff Wood.
July 16, 2008
The Honorable Rick Perry Governor, State of Texas P.O. Box 12428 Austin, Texas 78711-2428
Ms. Rissie Owens, Chair Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles 8610 Shoal Creek Boulevard Austin, Texas 78757
Re: Jeffrey Wood, TDJC No. 999256
Dear Governor Perry and Chairwoman Owens:
Our organization consists of hundreds of family members of murder victims plus thousands of “Friends of MVFR”. Many of these members reside in Texas. I write as a representative of all of these good people.
We make an urgent plea for you to extend mercy to Jeff Wood by commuting his death sentence. He presently resides on Texas’ death row, with the date of 8/21 set for his execution. We do not ordinarily write to state officials in behalf of those on death rows. We only do so when we believe the circumstances are so extraordinary that it cries out for leniency. In those cases, there have usually been one, or possibly two, circumstances that might lead to commutation. In Wood’s case, there appear to be at least four such circumstances, probably more, but the four noted herein are the ones that strike us as being most important. First, he was not at all involved in the shooting, actually being outside, with no idea this tragedy might take place. This is combined with fact that there was no predetermined plan for a shooting to happen. Second, he has severe mental problems, likely stemming from abuse he suffered as a child. This is no fake, proven by fact that he was originally found unfit to stand trial and placed in a mental hospital. Third, no defense was presented at the penalty phase of the trial, since Wood, in his diminished capacity, ordered his lawyer not to assert a defense. Had a defense been presented, there is a good possibility that this letter would not even be necessary. Fourth, and this is very important to those of us who have lost loved ones to murder, is the fact that the victim’s father and cousin do not want Wood to be executed. On a very personal note, the wishes of a father are very important to me. I lost my beloved daughter to murder in the State of Georgia twenty years ago, and at that time, I asked the prosecutor to seek the longest possible prison term she could for the killer, but not seek the death penalty. She complied with my request. While the desires of the victims’ family members certainly are not controlling, they often lead prosecutors to seek capital punishment. Here, they should also be a factor to be considered in determining whether leniency is appropriate.
To summarize, in our humble opinions, this is the exact type of case where intervention is called for, a case in which the legal requirements of capital punishment have been met, but justice will be best served by intervention. Accordingly, our thousands of members and friends most respectfully request that you provide that justice.
With great thanks for your consideration of this vital matter,
Lorry W. Post Executive Director
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Contact Governor Perry and the Board of Pardons and Paroles for Jeff Wood
Jeff Wood is waiting to die on Texas Death Row with an execution date of August 21st, 2008. Please contact Governor Perry and the Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles on behalf of Jeff Wood. Jeff was charged under the Law of Parties and was not the shooter in this crime. Jeff could not anticipate that a murder would occur. The actual shooter in this case has already been executed by the state of Texas.
It took over 17,000 people contacting Governor Perry and the Board of Pardons and Paroles to make a difference for Kenneth Foster, whose death sentence under the Law of Parties was commuted by Governor Perry last year. Please help save Jeff as Kenneth was saved. The cousin of Kris Keeran (the murder victim) wants to save the life of Jeff Wood:
"My cousin was the person killed by Danny, not Jeff. I say this as a family member who realized long ago Jeff had no part in my cousin's murder and he shouldn't be executed. It's insane to kill another person who did not kill Kris. The video showed Jeff took no part in it. Jeff was one of my friends growing up and someone I think deserves a chance. If he didn't kill him, why should we kill Jeff? This is ridiculous." - Amanda Smith, Texas June 19, 2008
Don’t know about Jeff Wood’s case? Here is a short case summary:
At approximately 6:00 a.m. on Jan. 2, 1996, while Wood waited outside, Reneau entered the gas station with a gun and pointed it at Kris Keeran, the clerk standing behind the counter. Reneau ordered him to a back room. When he did not move quickly enough, Reneau fired one shot with a 22 caliber handgun that struck Keeran between the eyes. Death was almost instantaneous. Proceeding with the robbery, Reneau went into the back office and took a safe. When hearing the shot, Wood got out of the car to see what was going on. He walked by the door and looked through the glass. Then he went inside, and he looked over the counter and ran to the back, where Reneau was. Wood was then ordered, at gun point by Reneau, to get the surveillance video and to drive the getaway-car.
Additional facts:
Wood suffers from severe mental, emotional and learning disabilities. He was abused and beat severely and repeatedly as a child. He is submissive to dominant behavior because of such.
At arrest Wood was forced into interrogation by the police and did not have council present. Wood was kept awake the entire time. He was refused sleep. He eventually confessed saying it was a planned robbery. He later revoked this statement.
Wood was found not mentally fit to stand trial. He was admitted into a mental hospital and a couple of weeks later was found 'trial ready'.
At trial, Wood was not satisfied with his representation. Wood asked to represent himself, but wasn't allowed to do so. The judge found him not capable of doing this. The judge however, did not argue Wood when Wood said he would then order his attorney's not to do anything. Result: Jeff had no witnesses during the punishment phase of his trial on his behalf.
The victim's father is against the death penalty and actually campaigned to keep the actual gunman Reneau alive.
Important facts that should be mentioned in your letter to the Governor include:
Jeff was charged under the Law of Parties and was not the shooter in this crime.
Jeff could not anticipate that a murder would occur.
Jeff was not even in the store when the murder took place and had no way of knowing it would happen.
The actual shooter in this case has already been executed by the state of Texas.
The murder was actually committed by Daniel Earl Reneau, who was executed in Texas on June 13, 2002 for this crime.
You can also express your sympathy for the family of the victim, Kris Keeran, while mentioning again that Jeff Wood did not kill Kris.
You can also mention that Jeff's case is similar to the case of Kenneth Foster, whose death sentence under the Law of Parties was commuted by Gov. Perry in 2007.
My name is Terri Been and I am a Texas republican who is AGAINST the death penalty. I am sorry to say that it was not always this way as I was raised to believe in the death penalty; BUT my views changed over 10 years ago when I was thrust unwillingly into the Texas Judicial system; at which time my eyes were opened to the complete injustice of our whole system.
See, I am the sister of a man wrongfully convicted under the law of parties in Texas. This man's name is Jeffery Wood and he is set to die on August 21st, 2008 for a murder he did NOT commit.
I am writing to you because I am feeling helpless, and I do not know what I can do. These days, I find myself slave to the computer...at first I was a slave to the computer waiting for the worst...to see my brother's name upon the list of those waiting to be executed. That time has come and gone, but I find myself still a slave to the computer in hopes of finding people who can help us in our fight against the Texas Judicial System.
With the execution date set less than 3 months from now, we are running out of time. We are desperate for exposure with people who have some kind of influence on the public, or people who know other people who may be able to help. If you have any thoughts, ideas, or just anything that may help...please feel free to get in touch with me.
We now have a homepage for Jeff in addition to the online petition that is circulating, (which can be found on his homepage at the following web address: www.freewebs.com/savejeffwood under the how to help section). I humbly ask you to help my family by taking a few minutes of your time to read a few facts regarding Jeff's case and to sign his petition that we will be sending the governor!
While you are on Jeff's Web Page, I also ask that you take an extra minute or two to look at the other information we have in the how you can help section. For those of you who are familiar with Kenneth Foster's case (which is very similar to Jeff's case) it took their family over 17,000messages to the Governor and the Board of Pardons and Paroles to get his sentence commuted to Life. This was accomplished by sending petitions, faxes, letters, and by making phone calls. At this point, I am getting a little worried because we only have 353 signatures on the petition, and while I am eternally grateful for every single signature.I need more. I need calls, letters and faxes to go along with the petition signatures.
I humbly ask that you help my family. Jeff is my baby brother and he did not kill anybody! Please ask yourselves what you would do if you were in my situation.
AUSTIN — One by one, nine wrongly convicted men stood up on the floor of the Texas Senate on Thursday to explain how innocent men ended up in prison and how to prevent it from happening again.
"I'm here to tell you I lost everything. I am still hurting. I am still broken," said James Giles, who spent 10 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. "We can do better in the justice system. The system failed all of us."
A week after a man who spent 27 years in prison became the 18th Dallas County man since 2001 to have his conviction tossed aside after DNA testing, state officials and men who lost years of their lives behind bars met in the Capitol to discuss what they said was Texas' "disturbing number of wrongful convictions."
The event was billed as the nation's first "Summit on Wrongful Convictions." It brought together lawyers, police chiefs, judges and lawmakers, who sought to identify systemic problems that could be addressed through changes in law.
Since 2001, DNA testing has cleared 33 Texans who spent a combined 427 years in prison, according to The Justice Project, a Washington, D.C.-based group. Eyewitness misidentification was a factor in 27 of those cases, easily the most common link.
State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said he will sponsor a bill during next year's legislative session that would mandate police departments use specific procedures when presenting live lineups or photo arrays to eyewitnesses. Several of the men who were wrongly convicted talked about how an incorrect identification by an eyewitness was a key factor in their false convictions.
HUNTSVILLE, Tex. — Here in the nation’s leading death-penalty state, and some of the 35 others with capital punishment, execution dockets are quickly filling up.
Less than three weeks after a United States Supreme Court ruling ended a seven-month moratorium on lethal injections, at least 14 execution dates have been set in six states between May 6 and October.
“The Supreme Court essentially blessed their way of doing things,” said Douglas A. Berman, a professor of law and a sentencing expert at Ohio State University. “So in some sense, they’re back from vacation and ready to go to work.”
Experts say the resumption of executions is likely to throw a strong new spotlight on the divisive national — and international — issue of capital punishment.
“When people confront a new wave of executions, they’ll be questioning not only how people are executed but whether people should be executed,” said James R. Acker, a historian of the death penalty and a criminal justice professor at the State University at Albany.
Texas leads the list with five people now set to die here in the Walls Unit, the state’s death house, between June 3 and Aug. 20. Virginia is next with four. Louisiana, Oklahoma and South Dakota have also set execution dates.
Some welcome the end of the moratorium.
“We’ll start playing a little bit of catch-up,” said William R. Hubbarth, a spokesman for Justice for All, a victims rights group based in Houston.
“It’s not like we have a cheering section for the death penalty.” Mr. Hubbarth said. But, he added: “The capital murderers set to be executed should be executed post-haste. It’s not about killing the inmate. It’s about imposing the penalty that 12 of his peers have assessed.”
More inmates whose appeals have expired are certain to be added to execution rosters soon, including, in all likelihood, Jack Harry Smith, who, at 70, is the oldest of the 360 men and 9 women on Texas’ death row (though hardly a row any more, but an entire compound). Mr. Smith has been under a death sentence for 30 years for a robbery killing at a grocery in the Houston area.
“If it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go,” said Mr. Smith, who maintains his innocence and was delivered by guards for a prison interview in a wheelchair.
So far, at least nine others elsewhere, including Antoinette Frank, a former police officer convicted of a murderous robbery rampage in New Orleans, have been given new execution dates, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-capital punishment research group that puts the latest death row census at 3,263. Dozens more are likely to get execution dates in coming months, but most under death sentences have not exhausted their appeals.
Yet public support for capital punishment may be dwindling. Death sentences have been on the decline, and a poll last year by death penalty opponents found Americans losing confidence in the death penalty.
“There will be more executions than people have the stomach for, at least in many parts of the country,” said Stephen B. Bright, president of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, a leading anti-death-penalty litigation clinic.
Last year, Texas accounted for 26 of the 42 executions nationwide. That includes the last two people executed before the Supreme Court signaled a moratorium on executions while considering whether the chemical formula used for lethal injection in Kentucky inflicted pain amounting to unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. The justices ruled 7 to 2 on April 16 that it did not, while allowing for possible future challenges.
But the scheduling of executions comes as prosecutors and juries have been turning away from the death penalty, often in favor of life sentences without parole, now an option in every death-penalty state but New Mexico.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, death sentences nationwide rose from 137 in 1977, peaked at 326 in 1995 and fell steadily to 110 last year.
“We’re seeing a huge drop-off,” said Mr. Bright, attributing the decline to the time and trouble of imposing death sentences, and a recent wave of exonerations after DNA tests proved wrongful conviction.
Close to 35 people have been cleared in Texas alone, including, just days ago, James L. Woodard, who spent more than 27 years in prison for a 1980 murder he did not commit.
The first inmate now set for execution is William E. Lynd, 53, on Tuesday in Georgia. Mr. Lind was convicted of shooting his girlfriend, Ginger Moore, in the face during an argument in 1988, shooting her again as she clung to life, and a third time, fatally, as she struggled in the trunk of his car. After burying her, he attacked and killed another woman he had stopped on the road.
With two other executions pending but not yet scheduled in Georgia, the state seeks “clearance of the backlog,” said Russ Willard, a spokesman for Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker. “We will work our way though the system at a much more rapid pace than we would have.”
Virginia — which has executed 98 people since 1976, second only to Texas, with 405 — has the next scheduled execution: May 27, for Kevin Green, 30, for the 1998 slayings of Patricia and Lawrence Vaughn in their convenience store in Dolphin. Three other Virginia inmates also have been given dates in June and July.
Louisiana has set a July 15 execution date for two inmates, including the former police officer, Ms. Frank, 30. She was convicted of killing a fellow officer, Ronald Williams, and two Vietnamese workers, Ha Vu and her brother, Cuong Vong, at their family’s restaurant in New Orleans during a robbery in 1995.
But appeals may delay her execution and that of the second inmate Darrell Robinson, convicted of killing four people.
South Dakota, which has recorded only 15 executions since 1889, set a week’s window of Oct. 7-13 for the execution of Briley Piper, 25. He pleaded guilty to the torture murder of Chester Allan Pogue, 19, who was forced to drink hydrochloric acid and then stabbed and bludgeoned to death in 2000. One accomplice was executed last year and another is serving life without parole.
The first Texas inmate now re-scheduled for death, on June 3, is Derrick Sonnier, 40, convicted of stalking, stabbing and strangling a young mother, Melody Flowers, and her baby son in Humble, north of Houston, in 1991.
Mr. Sonnier, who turned down a request this week for an interview, had forbidden his trial lawyer from calling family members as mitigating witnesses, costing him a chance for life in prison without parole, said his appellate lawyer, Jani Maselli.
About 1,100 people have been executed in the United States in the last three decades. Harris County, Tex., which includes Houston, accounts for more than 100 of those executions. Indeed, Harris County has sent more people to the death chamber than any state but Texas itself.
Yet Harris County’s capital justice system has not been the subject of intensive research — until now. A new study to be published in The Houston Law Review this fall has found two sorts of racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty there, one commonplace and one surprising.
The unexceptional finding is that defendants who kill whites are more likely to be sentenced to death than those who kill blacks. More than 20 studies around the nation have come to similar conclusions.
But the new study also detected a more straightforward disparity. It found that the race of the defendant by itself plays a major role in explaining who is sentenced to death.
It has never been conclusively proven that, all else being equal, blacks are more likely to be sentenced to death than whites in the three decades since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Many experts, including some opposed to the death penalty, have said that evidence of that sort of direct discrimination is spotty and equivocal.
But the author of the new study, Scott Phillips, a professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Denver, found a robust relationship between race and the likelihood of being sentenced to death even after the race of the victim and other factors were held constant.
His statistics have profound implications. For every 100 black defendants and 100 white defendants indicted for capital murder in Harris County, Professor Phillips found that an average of 12 white defendants and 17 black ones would be sent to death row. In other words, Professor Phillips wrote, “five black defendants would be sentenced to the ultimate sanction because of race.”
Scott Durfee, the general counsel for the Harris County district attorney’s office, rejected Professor Phillips’s conclusions and said that district attorneys there had long taken steps to insulate themselves from knowing the race of defendants and victims as they decided whether to seek the death penalty.
After 7 months without executions, Texas has scheduled two people for execution. Meanwhile, we are still waiting on a response from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to the complaint against Judge Sharon Keller that we sent them that was signed by around 1900 people regarding Keller's unethical behavior on Sept 25, the last time a person was executed in Texas and in the entire U.S.
From the Houston Chronicle:
At least two condemned Texas inmates already have execution dates following last week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the lethal injection process.
Charles Dean Hood, convicted of a double slaying in the Dallas suburb of Plano more than 18 years ago, and Larry Donnell Davis, condemned for a 1995 robbery-slaying in Amarillo, are set to die, said the Texas Attorney General's Office, which handles federal appeals involving capital murder cases.
Hood, 38, was set for lethal injection June 17 by State District Judge Curt Henderson. Davis, 40, was set to die July 31 by State District Judge John Board.
Justice Stevens Upholds Ky. Lethal Injection, Calls Executions 'Pointless' By ARIANE de VOGUE
April 16, 2008—
Justice John Paul Stevens, the Supreme Court's most senior member, took aim at the entire system of capital punishment Wednesday, writing in an opinion that it was a "pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes."
Stevens' stance came to light in his opinion on Kentucky's lethal injection protocol, which the court, including Stevens, upheld Wednesday in a 7-2 decision. There had been an unofficial moratorium on executions while the court mulled the case.
It is the first time 87-year-old Stevens has called on states to stop executions entirely.
Stevens wrote, "the risk of executing innocent defendants can be entirely eliminated by treating any penalty more severe than life imprisonment without the possibility of parole as constitutionally excessive."
In essence, Stevens has sent a signal that, while he recognizes the court has, in the past, found the death penalty to be constitutional, he thinks it's now time for state legislatures, Congress and the courts to reconsider.
He wrote how current attempts to "retain the death penalty as part of our law" are the "product of habit and inattention, rather than an acceptable deliberative process" that weighs the costs of administering the penalty against its benefits.
Wednesday's disclosure marks an evolution of Stevens' thoughts.
In 1976, only months after he had been nominated to the high court by President Gerald Ford, Stevens voted to reauthorize the death penalty in Gregg v. Georgia. Four years earlier, the court had invalidated it.
Aims to speed up execution Selwyn Davis expected to pursue only a required appeal.
By Steven Kreytak AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Tuesday, April 08, 2008
In a move that could trim his stay on Texas' death row from the norm of about 10 years to less than two, condemned killer Selwyn P. Davis wants to waive most of his appeals, according to his lawyer.
Ariel Payan, Davis' appeals lawyer, declined to say why Davis doesn't want to carry out all of his appeals.
During his October trial in Travis County, Davis' lawyers said he conceded that he fatally stabbed Regina Lara, his ex-girlfriend's mother, at her 381/2 Street apartment. But they argued that his crime was not committed in the course of a burglary and robbery, as charged, and that therefore it didn't fit Texas' definition of capital murder.
Davis killed Lara during a two-day crime spree that began when he beat his ex-girlfriend, fracturing her eye socket, and poured rubbing alcohol over her head and threatened to set her on fire, according to testimony. During the capital murder trial, Davis stuck his middle finger up at Lara's family.
It is uncommon for death row inmates to waive their appeals, and some defendants who initially say they don't want to appeal change their minds, according to death penalty lawyers. These include William Murray, a North Texas man condemned in 1998.
Murray, convicted of killing an elderly woman in Kaufman, said in 1999 that he wanted his execution expedited. He is still on death row after years of appeals, including a legal fight to reinstate his appellate rights.
Just over a year after Angel Maturino Resendiz was sentenced to death in 2000 for killing a Houston doctor, the confessed serial killer acknowledged his guilt and said he wanted to waive his appeals in the case. But his mental competency to do so was questioned, and a series of appeals was eventually filed on his behalf. He was executed in 2006.
The average stay on Texas' death row is 10 years and three months, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Since Texas reinstated the death penalty in the early 1980s, the inmate with the shortest stay on death row before execution was Joe Gonzales, who was executed in 1996 after eight months there. Gonzales, a roofer, was convicted in Potter County of the murder and robbery of his boss in Amarillo and waived his appeals.
Davis, 26, was sent to death row in Livingston from Travis County on Oct. 17, 2007, two days after his death sentence was announced. On Nov. 20, he wrote the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals a letter.
"I would like to cancel my appeals," the letter said, in part. "All of them!"
Last month, the court entered an order stating that Texas law guarantees a review by the Court of Criminal Appeals of a death penalty conviction and sentence. Payan said Davis has agreed to cooperate in that so-called direct appeal. But Payan said that Davis wants to waive his right to file applications for writ of habeas corpus in federal and state courts, the process by which inmates can challenge the legality of their incarceration.
That process, which takes years to run its course, can be waived.
Once briefs are filed by Davis and the state in the direct appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals is under no time limit to issue an order. Payan said some decisions are reached within months and others take years. He estimates the quickest Davis' case could be disposed on appeal and ready for an execution date would be in a year and a half.
Executions in Texas have been on hold since September as the U.S. Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of lethal injection. A decision is expected this summer.
Davis is in the Travis County Jail and will appear Friday before state District Judge Julie Kocurek, who presided over his trial. The Court of Criminal Appeals ordered Kocurek to question Davis on a series of issues related to his appeals, including whether he wants to waive any rights, and if so, whether he makes that waiver knowingly and intentionally.
Even if he did waive his right to appeal, the court would examine the trial record in its own review of the case, said University of Texas law professor Rob Owen, co-director of the school's Capital Punishment Clinic.
"There is a very strong public interest in ensuring that the Court of Criminal Appeals reviews every death penalty at least once to ensure conformity with basic fundamental rights," Owen said.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA One county, 100 executions Harris County and Texas -- A lethal combination One of the cruellest anomalies of the modern system of capital punishment: Geography means everything Houston Chronicle(1)
In 1969, "Houston" became the first word to be spoken by a human being on the moon, beginning astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous message back to earth. Four decades later, the City of Houston, or rather Harris County where both the city and NASA's Johnson Space Center are located, has gained international notoriety for something that pushes the boundaries of human decency rather than space exploration.
For, while Texas is the execution centre of the USA, Harris County is that state's main supplier of condemned human beings. This is a lethally symbiotic relationship that helps to create geographic bias in the US capital justice system on a grand scale.
Harris County is the third largest county in the United States, with a population of a little under four million inhabitants, or about 1.3 per cent of the US population. Between one and two per cent of the USA's murders each year occur in Harris County. About four per cent of the country's current death row inmates were tried in Harris County. Nine per cent of the men and 18 per cent of the women executed in the United States since judicial killing resumed there in 1977 were condemned to death in Harris County.
Ninety-seven men and two women prosecuted in Harris County have been put to death since Texas carried out its first execution of the "modern" era in 1982. At the time of writing, Lonnie Johnson was set to become the 100th such prisoner to be put to death, his execution scheduled for 24 July 2007. Johnny Connor was set to become the 101st on 22 August and Michael Richards the 102nd on 25 September.
If Harris County was a state, it would rank 26th in population among the US states, one above Oregon. Oregon has executed two people since 1977, both of whom had given up their appeals. There are about three of four times as many murders each year in Harris County as there are in Oregon, but Harris County accounts for 50 times as many executions as that west coast state. Indeed, if Harris County was a state, it would rank second only to Texas in the number of executions carried out since 1977.
Poll: Americans Want Death-Penalty Moratorium Growing concerns about making sure the innocent aren’t sentenced to death has caused more Americans to support a moratorium on the death penalty.
WEB EXCLUSIVE By Kurt Soller Newsweek Updated: 4:34 p.m. CT June 15, 2007
June 15, 2007 - Even though most Americans support the death penalty, there’s rising concern about how the state’s ultimate punishment is levied. A new poll by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that provides analysis on capital punishment, found that 58 percent want a national moratorium on executions. In 2006, there were fewer executions than in any year since the death penalty was reinstated over 30 years ago. NEWSWEEK’s Kurt Soller spoke with the director of the center, Richard Dieter, about the current state of capital punishment in America. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed want a moratorium in place. How surprising is that? Richard Dieter: It is counterintuitive, given that the majority of people support the death penalty nationally [65 percent according to a 2006 Gallup poll]. But even in the South, where most executions occur, there is a willingness to stop executions. If you’re concerned about killing innocent people, you want something done. [According to DPIC research], 62 percent support a death penalty [as long as it is administered fairly and the innocent are adequately protected]. But people have concerns: innocence. They don’t believe it’s a deterrent. Unfairness.
A decision by the Supreme Court on Monday that made it easier for prosecutors to exclude people who express reservations about the death penalty from capital juries will make the panels whiter and more conviction-prone, experts in law and psychology said this week.
The jurors who remain after people with moral objections to imposing the death penalty are weeded out, studies uniformly show, are significantly more likely to vote to find defendants guilty than jurors as a whole.
Back in 2001, both the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence and the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice approved measures for a moratorium on executions, primarily because of the powerful testimony from people such as Randall Adams and Kerry Cook about the risk of executing innocent people. See the news stories below.
The approval of a moratorium in the two committees in 2001 came as a complete surprise. This year, the two committees have not yet heard the moratorium issue. When hearings are scheduled, it is quite possible that we will see a repeat of 2001 because the of the reports in the past two years that as many as three innocent people may have been executed in Texas: Ruben Cantu, Cameron Willingham and Carlos De Luna. Also, Ernest Willis was exonerated and released from Texas death row in 2004 after spending 17 years there for a crime he did not commit.
Paper: Houston Chronicle Date: SUN 04/22/2001 Section: A Page: 1 Edition: 4 STAR
By JANET ELLIOTT, Houston Chronicle AustinBureau Staff
AUSTIN - After decades spent passing the toughest criminal laws and building the largest penal system in the nation, Texas lawmakers are taking a timeout.
This session, "tough on crime" talk has been replaced by discussions of reform and fairness. Instead of adding to the list of crimes for which a person can be executed, the Legislature is giving serious consideration to banning the execution of the mentally retarded and offering juries the option of sentencing capital murderers to life without parole.
Legislation to allow voters to decide whether executions should be halted for two years while the cases of the 445 individuals on death row are re-examined has made it out of committees in both the House and the Senate.
"Six months ago, had you told me we'd even be here, I wouldn't have believed it," former death-row inmate Randall Dale Adams told supporters of a death-penalty moratorium outside the Capitol last week.
In 1989, Adams was released from prison, where he spent more than a dozen years after being wrongfully convicted for the murder of a Dallas police officer. He said he is one of seven inmates in Texas and 95 nationwide who have been released from death row since 1971 after being exonerated of the crimes for which they were convicted.
Already this session, Gov. Rick Perry has signed into law a bill giving Texas inmates the right to petition a court for DNA tests using new technology that may not have been available at their trials.
The Senate has approved legislation setting minimum standards for court-appointed lawyers, for the first time kicking in state money to help pay the lawyers. The Senate also has passed bills to stop racial profiling and to provide more compensation for those who are wrongfully convicted.
The reforms may be an unintended legacy of President Bush. Bush was an ardent defender of the state's criminal justice system and presided over a record 40 executions during his last year as governor.
But his race gave a platform to critics who could point to flaws in the system such as ill-prepared lawyers appointed to represent poor defendants. The case of a lawyer who dozed during his client's capital murder trial became famous nationwide.
In 1999, Bush vetoed an indigent-defense reform bill, saying he supported the system that allowed trial judges to appoint defense attorneys. This year, Perry has expressed support for statewide standards for attorneys defending indigent clients.
Perry also has said the state should take a hard look at giving juries the option of sentencing capital murder defendants to life without parole. Bills to do that have been passed by committees in both chambers.
The House is scheduled to debate a bill Monday that would ban the execution of mentally retarded people.
"It's ironic because the changes that President Bush opposed are now coming about because of his presidential campaign," said Rep. Juan Hinojosa, a McAllen Democrat who serves as chairman of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee.
"The media, the different candidates that were running at that time, the different interest groups focused on the presidential race and the criminal justice system because we are executing more people than any other state in the nation," said Hinojosa, who is carrying many of the reform bills.
"Then, all of a sudden, we have the advancements made in forensic evidence such as DNA that showed we had convicted a whole bunch of people wrongly," continued Hinojosa, a lawyer who sometimes represents criminal defendants. "So that leads to the conclusion that there is a very strong possibility that there have been some innocent people executed in our state."
Bush maintained that no innocent person was executed in the state while he was governor.
Nearly a dozen men have been freed from Texas prisons in the past three years after DNA evidence cleared them of rape and murder charges.
One of those was Christopher Ochoa, who was released in January after he was exonerated by a DNA test and other evidence. Ochoa had been coerced by an Austin police officer into falsely confessing to raping and murdering Nancy DePriest at an Austin Pizza Hut in 1988. He implicated a friend, Richard Danzinger, who also was freed this year.
Jeanette Popp, the mother of the victim, has become an activist for an execution moratorium.
"There are those who say that the system isn't broken. I challenge them to listen to my story, to Randall's story, to look us in the eye and tell us justice was done," said Popp.
"DNA made everybody sit up and pay a little bit closer attention to the process," said Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston.
"Our criminal justice system is broken, and it needs to be repaired," said Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, the author of indigent-defense and hate-crime bills.
But not everyone is happy with the tinkering.
Harris County state District Judge Ted Poe said the system isn't broken. He said cases are thoroughly reviewed by state and federal judges.
"We want the judicial system to review cases," said Poe. "We don't want the Legislature to get involved in reviewing cases. That's not their area."
Advocates for crime victims also are watching some of the changes with dismay.
"This is one of the toughest sessions for victims in my memory," said William "Rusty" Hubbarth, who follows legislation for Justice for All, a Houston victims' rights group.
Chuck Noll, a prosecutor who is monitoring legislation for Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, said the session is turning into a disaster for law enforcement.
"All the people in the Legislature heard was, `Texas is bad, Texas is bad,' " Noll said. "We as prosecutors didn't feel comfortable defending ourselves in the media, didn't respond to these charges publicly because we don't feel professionally that's our job.
"As a result, there was a drumbeat for two years about how evil Texas is and how bad the system is, with no response from anybody in law enforcement. So there's this general feeling, `Oh, gee, there must be something wrong, so let's pass all these bills to fix it.' "
Kenneth Armbrister, a conservative Democrat from Victoria who is chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, believes there is more at play than just a response to criticism from outside Texas. Armbrister said he traveled around the country last year campaigning for Bush and defending the state's criminal justice record.
"I don't mind taking that heat," said Armbrister, a former police officer.
But Armbrister said he supports the moratorium bill because legislators already have acknowledged criminal justice weaknesses by advancing the bills on DNA testing and defense lawyers. Perry even declared the DNA bill an emergency.
"It would be somewhat hypocritical for us to then say, `Oh, well, we've just passed those, but we still think everything is the way it ought to be.' You can't have it both ways," Armbrister said.
The committees run by Armbrister and Hinojosa this year have one more Democrat than Republican, a turnaround from last session, when Republicans dominated the committees. The vote in both committees on the moratorium bills broke down along party lines.
Paper: Houston Chronicle Date: THU 04/12/2001 Section: A Page: 1 Edition: 3 STAR
By JANET ELLIOTT, Houston ChronicleAustin Bureau Staff
AUSTIN - Texas voters would decide whether to halt executions for two years while the fairness of the state's criminal justice system is studied, under a resolution passed by a Senate committee Wednesday in a tight vote that fell along party lines.
The surprising 4-3 vote by the Criminal Justice Committee is the first step in a long process to get the issue of a moratorium before voters in November.
Senate Joint Resolution 25 would let Texans amend the constitution to prohibit the state from carrying out lethal injections until Sept. 2, 2003. The committee also passed Senate Bill 680, which would set up a special commission to study possible flaws in the system, including legal representation of indigent inmates, the possible innocence of death row inmates and whether race is a factor in such cases.
"By passing this committee, we have cleared one hurdle. We have many more," said Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, sponsor of the resolution and bill.
Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, a member of the committee, voted for the bill.
Shapleigh said he doesn't plan to push the measure to a Senate floor debate right away. He needs time to find the 21 votes necessary to bring the measure up for floor debate, he said.
Two-thirds of the Senate and House would have to pass the proposed constitutional amendment for it to be placed on the November ballot.
Texas by far leads the nation's in executions and has 449 on death row. Last year, the state set a national record for executions when 40 people were put to death. Six have been executed this year.
Sen. Kenneth Armbrister, D-Victoria, is a former police officer and chairman of the committee. Armbrister said he supported Shapleigh's bill because of steps lawmakers have taken this year to strengthen the state's criminal justice system.
Last week, Gov. Rick Perry signed legislation that established a process for inmates to seek DNA testing that might clear them. Tuesday, the Senate passed a bill to establish standards for appointing defense lawyers to represent poor defendants.
"It would be somewhat hypocritical for us to then say, `Oh well, we've just passed those but we still think everything is the way it ought to be.' You can't have it both ways," said Armbrister.
Flaws in the state's capital punishment system were widely publicized during the presidential election and highlighted in a Houston Chronicle series in February.
The reports and other studies found capital cases involving unqualified or ill-prepared defense attorneys and even lawyers who slept through parts of a capital trial. Nearly a dozen men, including one who had spent time on death row, have been released after new DNA testing proved their innocence.
Kerry Max Cook last week told the committee that he spent 20 years in prison - 13 on death row - before testing on DNA evidence spurred his release in 1999.
"This is what I survived for," Cook said. "I'm not an abolitionist. I'm fighting for the innocent victims of the death penalty."
Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, voted against the resolution, "keeping in mind the rights of the victims and the victims' families . . . ," said spokesman Jerry Johnson.
Perry does not believe a moratorium is necessary, said spokesman Gene Acuna.
Armbrister said a popular vote also would allow Texans to express whether they still believe in the way the state administers capital punishment.
"It sets up a vehicle for Texans to ask themselves that question: Do we believe that the system we have now in place guarantees proof beyond a reasonable doubt that this individual deserves to be executed?" said Armbrister.
Religious leaders praised the vote.
"Our Texas capital punishment system is a broken legal-social system," said Bishop Michael Pfeiffer of the Diocese of San Angelo and president of the Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops. "The Legislature should suspend executions while we as a state conduct a thorough examination of the system."
Dianne Clements of the Houston-based victims' rights group Justice for All, called the moratorium "a preposterous idea which has no foundation."
The bill calls for the Capital Punishment Commission to include 11 members experienced in criminal justice issues. The governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker each would appoint three members; the deans of the law schools at the University of Texas and Texas Tech University would name two others.
Similar legislation by Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, is pending in a House committee.
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Chicago Tribune cites Texas innocence cases in call to abolish death penalt
This newspaper has done groundbreaking reporting on cases that suggest innocent people have been executed.
Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death in Texas in 1994 for the arson murders of his three daughters. Willingham claimed he was innocent, and now several arson experts believe the case against him was built on scientifically invalid evidence. The fire that killed Willingham's children may have been an accident.
Carlos De Luna was executed in Texas in 1989 for the murder of a gas station clerk, though no forensic evidence linked him to the crime. Now evidence points to another man, Carlos Hernandez, who bragged to relatives and friends that De Luna was convicted for a murder Hernandez committed.
The editorial concludes:
The evidence of mistakes, the evidence of arbitrary decisions, the sobering knowledge that government can't provide certainty that the innocent will not be put to death--all that prompts this call for an end to capital punishment. It is time to stop killing in the people's name.
The Texas Legislature has about two months left in its current session to take action on the question of whether Texas has executed innocent people. The very real probability that innocent people have been executed in Texas should be dealt with as a statewide emergency that requires a moratorium on executions and a death penalty study commission.
The chair of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee should immediately schedule a hearing on HB 809, which would enact a two-year moratorium and create a study commission.
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Kerry Cook Article in Austin-American Statesman
Posted by admin on: Saturday 17 February @ 21:35:53
Justice reclaimed After decades on death row, Kerry Cook had to learn how to live again.
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Sunday, February 18, 2007
LLANO — Beginning in the summer of 1977, when Linda Jo Edwards was found raped, murdered and mutilated in her Tyler apartment, Smith County fought hard to kill Kerry Max Cook for the deed.
Tried, convicted, sentenced to die and sent to the Ellis Unit in Huntsville, Cook was raped shortly after his arrival and made a sexual slave, a commodity to be traded like cigarettes in the death house economy. Over more than two decades he endured three trials, appeals that raised his hopes and dashed them again, brutal assaults and suicide attempts, the last of which, in August 1991, included nearly severing his penis. He dipped a finger in his own blood to scrawl a final message on the wall of his cell: "I was an innocent man." The organ was reattached and Cook recovered.
Wife Sandra Pressey met Kerry Cook at an Amnesty International meeting. She's helped him find his way in the outside world that he'd been shut off from for two decades.
For two decades on death row, Kerry Max Cook lived in fear. Today, his experience haunts him, but his 6-year-old son, Kerry Justice Cook, has brought joy.
Over and over, his lawyers argued that Cook had gotten a raw deal, railroaded to death row by prosecutors and police. Finally, the appeals court agreed with them and ordered a new trial, his fourth. At the 11th hour, prosecutors offered a deal, and Cook walked out of the Bastrop County Courthouse a free man.
That was eight years ago. But to borrow from Faulkner, the past is never in the past for Kerry Max Cook.
His case has become a rallying cry for criminal justice reform advocates and death penalty opponents. Where once his companions were the scum of humanity, he now hobnobs with Ben Stiller, Bruce Springsteen and Susan Sarandon. His tale is one of those told in the hit play "The Exonerated." He has a book coming out Feb. 27, "Chasing Justice: My Story of Freeing Myself After Two Decades on Death Row for a Crime I Didn't Commit" and a Web site, chasingjustice.com.
These days, Cook lives with his wife, Sandra Pressey, and their 6-year-old son, Kerry Justice Cook, in a Plano apartment complex overlooking a golf course. They have a big-screen JVC TV, a Macintosh computer with a Scooby Doo mouse pad and a couple of frenetic Jack Russell terriers.
Solidly built and square-jawed, he paces in his living room and talks fast, like a man who's been struggling for a long time to be heard.
He says, "I think my case is as Kafkaesque as it could ever get in America. A man was railroaded here."
Says Tyler attorney David Dobbs, who prosecuted him and is now in private practice: "It's such a joke that we promote and support people such as Kerry Max Cook in our world. . . . It has nothing to do with justice; it's all about publicity and targeting weak cases from the past that are vulnerable."
Says Paul Nugent, Cook's attorney: "Kerry's case is the most egregious prosecutorial misconduct ever documented in Texas. . . . It is shocking. Prosecutorial misconduct is easy to allege but it's hard to prove. We proved it."
A brilliant and unprecedented work, Chasing Justice is the riveting chronicle of how a smalltown murder became one of the worst cases of prosecutorial misconduct in American history—and sent the author, an innocent man, to hell for twenty-two harrowing years. Kerry Max Cook is one of the longest-tenured death-row prisoners to be freed: This is his unbelievable story and the only first hand account of its kind.
"Chasing Justice is captivating...It is going to break through political barriers and be a catalyst for reform.
— Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking
"I dare you to read this book. . . An inspiring human being."
— Richard Dreyfuss
"A brutal but compelling account. . . . Amazing."
— William S. Sessions, former FBI Director and federal judge
"The incredible story of this enforced visit to hell and back is a modern day version of Dante and Kafka."
— Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law School
"Deserves a wide readership alongside John Grisham’s The Innocent Man.
— Publishers Weekly
"An inmate’s harrowing first-person account of a travesty of Texas jurisprudence."
— Kirkus Reviews
"As a Texas death row in-mate trying to prove himself innocent of a rape and murder in Tyler, KERRY MAX COOK was reminded of his fate every time another con made the death walk. CHASING JUSTICE is a hellish tour of a criminal justice system whose officers allegedly railroaded Cook for personal and political gain. The litany of professional malfeasance was sufficiently egregious to inspire the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to write, with unprecedented frankness, that “prosecutorial and police misconduct has tainted this entire matter” and that the “conviction was obtained t
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