Scheduled for Texas Execution: Jeff Wood, a Mentally Challenged Young Man

Thanks for responding, Bill.  It is relatively easy to induce mental patients and people with learning disabilities to do wrong things, unfortunately.

Mary

Hi there,

           I am from Malta where luckily we have no death penalties.Thank God for that.Personally,I am against the death penalty.No good comes out of it especially where the law of parties comes in.Please abolish the law of parties.Save Jeff Wood and many other innocent ones.

          I am studying Criminology and I am often following the news abt Texas.It hurts to know abt persons who are abt to die,let alone innocent ones.

          Save Jeff Wood's life.Thanks

                                                  Carmen

         

Don't you people feel really guilty for for telling the lies and half-truths about this case? Poor sweet Jeff set the whole thing up, provided the car, helped loot the place. The ONLY way they could have gottend away with the robbery was for Kriss to be dead! Since Kriss and Jeff knew each other.

Better luck next time! 

this is wrong save jeff..... my brother should have made a statement to clear him of the murder sorry he didnt

Please remember Jeff Wood today and tomorrow.  If you can, please fast at breakfast and/or lunch tomorrow and pray for God to intervene in his execution!  Remind your friends to also pray, meditate, pause and think, or whatever for Jeff!

Thanks, Amy.  I'll report on Jeff Wood's execution tomorrow, unless God blesses us with better news to share.  As it stands now, it does not look good for this mentally ill young man, who the state acknowledges never killed anyone.

Mary

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. Jeff is my husbands big brother. My heart is breaking in anticipation of today. Mental illness or not. He didn't kill any one. It's in God's hands now. I can't really prepare myself. All I can do is comfort my husband.

Thanks, Zichi!  I really appreciate your flagging this article.  As this man who killed no one faces execution in a few hours, Jeff's plight needs all the attention we can give it today.

THANK YOU NowPublic.com!  For giving us this mode of communication to tell the high officials of the world what we think!  And thank GOD ALMIGHTY that sometimes they actually listen!

Jeff Wood has been granted a STAY OF EXECUTION!  My thoughts?

JOY TO THE WORLD, THE LORD HAS COME!  I feel like a six-year-old on Christmas morning!  Now I can tell everybody and get some sleep.

Blessings,

Mary

Thank you, Sanja Jha!  Praise God!  Jeff breathes!

Mary

I took no offense what so ever. Thank you for all of your hard work. May God bless you and keep you safe.

 Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. The Wood Family.

When I 1st started hearing about this case some weeks ago,I,as a Native Texan, couldnt help but feel somewhat ashamed of my leaders.This went way to far,and that judge(no capital because he doesnt deserve 1) and the da`s office should be reprimanded,and investigated,because there seems to have been quite bit of out and out illegal activities going on from both of those parties.Now for a big GOOD JOB to Judge Orlando Luis Garcia ,for taking the time to inject some sanity into this mess.Now with that said,yes it was a horrible crime,and my sympathies to the family of the man killed by the real murderer.Unfortunately,this isnt anything new to Texas,over the past couple of decades we have become the Nations largest "prisons for profit" system,which is just a damn shame in itself,and in order for these people to keep their profit margins rising,more and more will have to be subjected to the totures of our so called penal system,which after all is just a buisiness to them.Shame on anyone who will line theyre pockets with the suffering of fellow Texans,Please dont misconstrue anything I`m saying as to suggest that I think that noone should be locked away,their are many who deserve to be right where they are.With that said,to railroad so many through our system every year is not right,not right at all.

Thanks for your comments, Oddfox.  With 2.3 MILLION Americans behind bars tonight, this country imprisons a larger percentage of its population than any other on the planet.  And I do not think that is because we are the worst people in the world.  I agree that much of the reason is because of laws skewed to target disenfranchised populations of young people and inadequate legal defense at trial due to the defendants' poverty.  The private prisons are kept well populated largely by inequitable laws, unjust prosecutors, and inhumane justices. Some day, I hope someone does an investigation to see how many judges and prosecutors or their family members and close friends own shares in the privatized prisons.  But such an investigation will never be conducted by this country's corporate-owned, government controlled mainstream media.

Furthermore, this is the only country in the West that practices capital punishment, or human sacrifice.  I find it unfortunate indeed that to the rest of the world, the appearance is that this is the way things are done in a government run by "Christians."  I am so tired of people giving Jesus a bad name by their lack of love an human kindness while professing to know Him.  I was appalled to learn that more than half of the prisoners, 1.25 million, are mental patients like Jeff Wood and my brother, who died under secret arrest following some misdemeanor related to his mental illness.

If you take a look at the Prisoner Genocide website, you will probably agree with me that life in prison without parole is suitable punishment for even the worse offenses  - http://www.geocities.com/prisonmurder/.  It is too bad that the popular concept of prison life is felons enjoying color television, steak dinners, and workouts in prison gyms.  Not!  From the stories on this website, it is a horrible place to be, and everyone who is in prison has been stripped the most basic freedoms and much of his dignity. 

When we condemn a man or woman to life in prison without parole, despite the popular view, they are not going on any resort vacation.  I believe prisoners must exist in a state of perpetual fear of offending the wrong fellow prisoner or prison guard.  Reporting abuses from either can result in greater abuse or even death.  Most prisoners can only visit with their families through a wall of glass, and cannot even hear their loved ones' natural voices, but use phones instead.  Medical and psychiatric care is terribly substandard or altogether withheld from many prisoners.  Most important is the fact that prisoners have no self-determination and privacy.  Others tell them when to awaken, when to sleep, what they will have at mealtime and when to eat it, and when they can see their families.  Prisoners' mail is opened and examined, and their every movement is videotaped for security. 

Therefore I believe life in prison with no chance of parole is a HORRIBLE sentence, sufficient for even the worst offenses.

*************

David Basker, Esq. recommended that I read the following book and gave me his review of it, an excerpt of which is below:

Prison Profiteers:  Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration?   

This book includes Chapters written by Experts:  Edited by Tara Herivel and Paul Wright. Tara is the co-editor of Prison Nation:  The Warehousing of America's Poor, and the author of numerous articles in the alternative press.  She is a public defender in the Portland , Oregon area. Paul is the founder and editor of Prison Legal News and co-editor of Prison Nation and The Ceiling of America.  AN ALL INCLUSIVE EXPOSE of the astonishing range of industries, corporations, and individuals profiting from the imprisonment of over 2.3 million Americans that generate hundreds of billion$ from modern day $lavery, to wit:  A REPORT PRODUCED FOR THE PRIVATE PRISON INDUSTRY BY INVESTMENT ANALYSTS, FIRST ANALYSIS SECURITIES CORPORATION.

Positive:  "With the baby boomlet demographics, we foresee increasing demand for juvenile [incarceration] services."

Negative:  "It is often difficult to maintain the occupancy rates required for profitability."

Accordingly, they lobby with great success tougher laws with longer harsh sentences.

Locking up 2.3 million people isn’t cheap.

Each year federal, state, and local governments spend over $185 billion annually in tax dollars to ensure that one out of every 137 Americans is imprisoned. Prison Profiteers looks at the private prison companies, investment banks, churches, guard unions, medical corporations, and other industries and individuals that benefit from this country’s experiment with mass imprisonment. It lets us follow the money from public to private hands and exposes how monies formerly designated for the public good are diverted to prisons and their maintenance.  

Contact – http://www.prisonle galnews.org/

Editorial Review - from Publishers Weekly:  In their follow-up to 2002's Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America's Poor, prisoner rights activists Herivel and Wright, along with 16 other contributors, follow the money to an astonishing constellation of prison administrators and politicians working in collusion with private parties to maximize profits at the expense of taxpayers, community health and, of course, the 2.3 million inmates nationwide.  

The overarching narrative, laid out clearly in the opening article by Judy Greene, finds a system increasingly dominated by select, minimally accountable private companies for whom profitability depends on the promise of more and longer convictions. As such, investment in treatment programs, education and family assistance is diverted to organizations delivering substandard food and "health care" that allows hepatitis C to reach levels one doctor compares to "the Dark Ages with the plague"; corruption runs all the way down to prison phone contracts.     

Cruelty and administrative stupidity come in many forms, claim the authors; guards earning $5.77 per hour beat the young inmates of a Louisiana juvenile facility while abuse schemes and political back- scratching trump efforts to police them, as evidenced by the growth of industry tradeshows and companies, such as Taser manufacturers. This is lucid, eye-opening reading for anyone interested in American (IN)justice.

David Mitchell Basker, J.D.
http://www.murderth edeathpenalty. us/
Alumnus:     Univ. Tenn - College of Law, PRISONERS HEALTH CARE MINISTRY
Attorney at Law, Washington, D.C., P.O. Box 357426, Gainesville, Florida Blessings, and thanks for participating in this discussion!

Mary  

Yes, that *IS* my true name...

My ex-wife referred me to an article about Jeff, probably out of other than benevolent feelings, because of our name.

Please let me first say that I am pro-death penalty. I would also like to see automatic review of all evidence, and DNA testing where possible, of all death row inmate's cases before they are executed. I don't want to kill the wrong person, because I view capital punishment not as revenge, but as a way to remove a danger from society, while preserving the dignity of the individual executed. Imprisoning someone, subjecting them to the torture and indecency of prisions in the US *IS* inhumane when compared to death. Oh, and killing the wrong person is itself MURDER...

However, I also do not advocate the killing of those that are mentally retarded. They are indeed easy to lead into doing criminal actions.

Jeff was lead down this path by the actual murderer, then forced to drive the get away car at gunpoint. That Law of Parties or whatever piece of crap they are using in this case should itself be declared unconstitutional or whatever it takes to strike it down.

I applaud Judge Garcia for his actions here, because I think Texas royally f'd up here. I also think that when a case is messed up by prosecution by suppression of evidence or witnesses, the person needs to go free, EVEN IF they are a trigger-pulling murderer, because I think the greatest danger to society is a legal system that is no longer responsible to the people it's supposed to protect.

Thank you, Jeff.  I agree with all that you say, except I disagree with the death penalty.  This system is not honest enough to trust with that responsibility, even if I did not object on moral grounds, which I do.  See what happens sometimes in our justice system by reading the following article:

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/updated-handicapped-tennessee-man-death-row-despite-strong-likelihood-innocence-mary-neal

I am so pleased that you took the time to write your comments.  Our legislators are elected to represent us.  Let it be known across America in the courthouses and the executive branches of state and federal government:  Jeffrey Lee Wood and millions of other Americans want to ensure that NO innocent people are executed!  This means mandatory DNA testing of evidence for condemned people; no killing mental patients, who are innocent because of mental disabilities; no killing minors - and don't simply hold a minor until he/she is 18 to kill them, either!

Thanks again for writing.  I was just listening to some music while I worked on various human rights matters.  May I share it with you? 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPyaZiYSgv8

Blessings,

Mary