Jeff Wood Essay
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Friday to halt the scheduled execution of a man who did not kill anyone.
Jeff Wood was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on August 24 for taking part in a a convenience store robbery in which store clerk Kriss Keeran was murdered.
Yet Wood was not the man who shot Keeran; he was outside the store when his friend, Danny Reneau, shot Keeran after he refused to give Reneau a store safe. Wood went inside the store after Keeran was shot, and was threatened by Reneau to help him remove both the safe and security tape. Lawyers from both sides acknowledge that Wood did not kill anyone the night of the robbery, yet both were allowed to be put on death row
Both Reneau and Wood were convicted of murder …show more content…
Grigson, a forensic psychiatrist, had a history of testifying against hundreds of capital murder defendants, earning him the nickname “Dr. Death.” He was also expelled from the American Psychiatric Association and Texas Psychiatric Physicians for ethical violations. The issue: He diagnosed defendants without first examining them.
This was also an issue in Wood’s case. According to The Washington Post:
Grigson didn’t personally examine Wood. But during the sentencing phase of the trial, the forensic psychiatrist told jurors that Wood would “most certainly” commit violent crimes in the future, according to court records.
The prosecuting attorney elicited that response by describing a hypothetical situation that laid out the facts of the case.
“Three former jurors have said they feel the government’s presentation to them of a discredited psychiatrist who predicted with certainty,” Tyler said in a statement Friday. “And without evaluating Mr. Wood, that Mr. Wood would be criminally violent in the future was unfair.”
Questions have also been raised about Wood’s mental health. Court documents state Wood has borderline intellectual functioning, and his step-mother has previously described him as an “eight-year-old in a man’s
Jeff Wood was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on August 24 for taking part in a a convenience store robbery in which store clerk Kriss Keeran was murdered.
Yet Wood was not the man who shot Keeran; he was outside the store when his friend, Danny Reneau, shot Keeran after he refused to give Reneau a store safe. Wood went inside the store after Keeran was shot, and was threatened by Reneau to help him remove both the safe and security tape. Lawyers from both sides acknowledge that Wood did not kill anyone the night of the robbery, yet both were allowed to be put on death row
Both Reneau and Wood were convicted of murder …show more content…
Grigson, a forensic psychiatrist, had a history of testifying against hundreds of capital murder defendants, earning him the nickname “Dr. Death.” He was also expelled from the American Psychiatric Association and Texas Psychiatric Physicians for ethical violations. The issue: He diagnosed defendants without first examining them.
This was also an issue in Wood’s case. According to The Washington Post:
Grigson didn’t personally examine Wood. But during the sentencing phase of the trial, the forensic psychiatrist told jurors that Wood would “most certainly” commit violent crimes in the future, according to court records.
The prosecuting attorney elicited that response by describing a hypothetical situation that laid out the facts of the case.
“Three former jurors have said they feel the government’s presentation to them of a discredited psychiatrist who predicted with certainty,” Tyler said in a statement Friday. “And without evaluating Mr. Wood, that Mr. Wood would be criminally violent in the future was unfair.”
Questions have also been raised about Wood’s mental health. Court documents state Wood has borderline intellectual functioning, and his step-mother has previously described him as an “eight-year-old in a man’s