Texas Monthly published a well-researched op-ed on Jeff Wood, written by Sabine Heinlein, entitled “Does This Man Deserve to Die?“, excerpts:
Many states have laws comparable to Texas’s Law of Parties, but few apply them to the death penalty; fewer still have actually executed people who didn’t directly cause someone else’s death. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, only 10 individuals who didn’t directly kill the victim have been executed, one each in Florida, Utah, Oklahoma, Indiana, and Missouri, and the remaining five in Texas. What sets these cases apart from Wood’s is that most capital defendants were present during the murder, sometimes even fired shots or participated in torturing the victim.
“What you have is a statute that allows someone who is a party to be sentenced to death under what I believe is a lesser burden than being the actual triggerman,” says Tim Cole, a law professor at the University of North Texas and former district attorney of the 97th district. “I think there is a problem with that. These days, defense attorneys are put under a microscope. This kind of case would not be tried as a death penalty case in most places, probably not even here in Texas.”
Few people know that the death penalty can be applied when someone is convicted under the Law of Parties—and among those who do, it has long been a contentious issue. In 2009, Jeffrey Wood’s sister, Terri Been, and a group of advocates from the Texas Moratorium Network came close to having a bill passed by the state Legislature that would have limited the death penalty as a sentencing option under the Law of Parties. The Texas House of Representatives approved the bill, but Rick Perry, who was governor at the time, threatened to veto it if it went through the Senate. It will be reintroduced in the next legislative session, in January 2017.
But let’s give the law as it stands now the benefit of the doubt: If Wood didn’t suffer from emotional and intellectual impairment, one could potentially argue that he should have been able to anticipate that Reneau would murder Keeran. But even then, the Supreme Court has held that the death penalty “be limited to those offenders … whose extreme culpability makes them the most deserving of execution.” The death penalty is reserved for “the worst of the worst,” according to the Supreme Court. If Wood wasn’t present for the shooting, is he equally responsible as Reneau for Keeran’s death? Is an intellectually impaired man who drove the getaway car the worst of the worst? Would a prosecutor seek the death penalty in Jeffrey Wood’s case today?
“If I had this case to make a decision on today,” wrote Wilke, who is an assistant district attorney in Kerrville, “I would make the same decision.” But had Wood been tried today, it is unlikely he would be sentenced to death. In 1999 juries sent 38 people to death row; in 2015 and 2016 combined, they condemned just five new individuals to death, none of them under the Law of Parties.