7 ms·

In Texas, a man who didn’t kill anybody is about to be executed for murder

76 points by samsolomon 10y ago

joesmo 10y ago
It seems to me that such laws punish people for associating with certain individuals who go on to commit crimes, requiring everyone to essentially be psychic or predict others' actions correctly 100% of the time to stay on the right side of the law. Either that or avoid associating with anyone. It's insane--and certainly unjust--that a law that makes such impossible and ridiculous demands of people is considered just.
- jack9 10y ago
  The facts of the topical case aren't that ludicrous. The link goes into enough detail where it's clear he was complicit in the murder, even if not present for the physical shooting.
- djrogers 10y ago
  Setting aside the death penalty aspect, this case is not about association - it's about explicit participation in a felony that resulted in the death of an innocent victim. Doesn't require a psychic to determine that committing a robbery with someone whom you know to own and carry a firearm could result in a death.
  - detaro 10y ago
    From the article, the "explicit participation" isn't all that clear, and not required to be proven by the prosecution? (but it's not purely association either)
  - vacri 10y ago
    > with someone whom you know to own and carry a firearm could result in a death In modern Texas with its 'carry' laws, this could be anyone. Besides, given the gun lobby rhetoric, 'guns don't kill people', so a death is 'just as likely' with a knife or any other tool to hand - even stuff already in the shop. After all, if someone is intent on killing you, 'they're going to do it whether or not they have a gun'.
- Pica_soO 10y ago
  If you are a judge and you are in "bad" company all day, does that make you by the spirit of this law make you complicit in future crimes if you release them out into the world?
gozur88 10y ago
>Legal experts say his case is rare, even in Texas, the execution capital of America — and a state that allows capital punishment for people who did not kill anyone or did not intend to kill. Forty six US states have Felony Murder statutes. I don't think this is all that rare for states with capital punishment. According to the wiki "...the death penalty may be imposed if the defendant is a major participant in the underlying felony and 'exhibits extreme indifference to human life'."
- ivanca 10y ago
  OMG I already exhibit extreme indifference to human life; I guess I already have half of the requirements for the death penalty.
- refurb 10y ago
  Correct! I'm not sure why Texas is being singled out here. California has this statue as well. If you participate in the commission of a felony crime and someone dies, then you are guilty of felony murder. They have something similar in the EU (e.g. Germany has "with deadly outcomes") where you receive an extended sentence even if you never intended for that person to die.
  - honkhonkpants 10y ago
    California has executed 13 people in 40 years, and none in the last ten. Texas has executed 500 people in the same time.
    - gozur88 10y ago
      On the other hand, there are more than 750 people on death row in California. It's not that we don't sentence them to death; it's just that we've created a system where we can't carry out the execution before they die of natural causes.
danso 10y ago
IMO, the real apparent injustice in this case is the prosecutor's use of a forensic psychiatrist who apparently has a cottage industry in testifying against defendants: > Wood was committed to a mental health hospital after he was found incompetent. A neuropsychologist had testified that Wood was delusional, unable to grasp the issues about his case and the reality facing him... > The writ of habeas corpus, filed in July, spotlights something else the jury did not know: the troubled history of a forensic psychiatrist whose testimony resulted in Wood’s death sentence. > James Grigson was no stranger to capital murder cases: By the time Wood went on trial, in 1998, Grigson said he had testified in 163 such cases. Prosecutors often sought his testimony to secure the ultimate punishment for defendants. Often, they were successful, earning Grigson a nickname: “Dr. Death.” > In 1995, three years before Wood’s trial, Grigson was expelled from the American Psychiatric Association and its Texas branch at that time, the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians, for predicting a defendant’s potential threat to society based solely on a hypothetical. The expulsions followed an investigation by the Texas association’s ethics committee, which cited Grigson’s “willfully narrow rendition of psychiatric knowledge.”
- jrapdx3 10y ago
  Obviously I don't know all the details of the case but I find it troublesome that a psychiatrist would render an opinion without examining the individual who is the object of the opinion. On its face this is unethical particularly in a situation where there's so much at stake. I'm aware that "assessment at a distance" is frequently sought, for example, reviewing clinical info in the medical record to determine if services were consistent with billing for reimbursement. This is often a question arising with Medicare and other 3rd party payers. However that's not unethical since it's quite different from providing a diagnosis or determining the qualities of a person's functioning without examining the individual. I have no idea if the doctor's conduct had come before the state licensing board, but it appears there would be substantial reason to consider that conduct "unprofessional" given the actions of the professional societies declaring the behavior as unethical. Normally such disciplinary action carries consider weight with licensing bodies. Most likely this avenue of doing something to keep the situation from recurring has already been explored, it would be a shame if it was overlooked.
provoc 10y ago
It astounds me that Americans think themselves to be the pinnacle of civilisation, when they still gleefully enact the death penalty. It disgusts me that this vile, barbarous country has so much power in the world.
techsupporter 10y ago
I'm a native Texan, which I point out solely to rebut the assertion that all--or even many--Texans are in favor of the death penalty, and I very much oppose the death penalty for reasons exactly such as this. Maybe this man committed a crime; it sure seems like he did. But maybe he didn't. Or maybe he didn't in the way that the state, or the psychiatrist, or the eyewitnesses claim he did. That's the problem with the death penalty: There are vanishingly few situations where we can be 100%, absolutely clear on whether a person did something that warrants permanently removing that person from existence. We are a nation of laws and we are also a nation of fallible human beings. If we could be completely certain, then perhaps I would be OK with the permanence of death. But we can't, so we shouldn't be killing criminals in the name of the people or the state. Because what happens if we are wrong? What happens if we are wrong 138 times[0]? Why have we forgotten that "[i]t is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer?" 0 - http://tcadp.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/TXDPFactSheet01-11.pdf http://tcadp.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/TXDPFactSheet01-...
- ythl 10y ago
  > There are vanishingly few situations where we can be 100%, absolutely clear on whether a person did something that warrants permanently removing that person from existence. So would you say that the vast majority of murder convictions leave at least a little room for doubt?
  - techsupporter 10y ago
    Yes. "Beyond all reasonable doubt" is fine for throwing someone in jail and putting the key all but permanently out of reach. But I think that, as a society, we must retain the ability to say "oh shit we fucked up very much here is the door we are very sorry please take this huge sack of cash along with our sincere apologies" if or when we discover that our legal system made a massive error. In this day and age, were an exoneration to happen, I would also mandate that the state put up billboards in the person's home town and where the crime allegedly took place and run Internet ads and do lots of press interviews to get it out as widely as possible that someone has been exonerated.
myrryr 10y ago
This seems like an odd article to be posted here. The author has stopped posting comments and around the same time started just posting links to articles. Also he isn't posting any comments to any of the articles he is posting.... His twitter feed isn't mentioning anything like this... I wonder if his account is still under his control?
Aelinsaar 10y ago
Another case in point for why "Texas" is Norwegian slang for "Crazy".
allendoerfer 10y ago
I am neither Texan nor American, so this is an outsiders perspective: What I do not get is how the EU can just blatantly ignore this. When one of our politicians travels to an Arab country or to China and does not address the human rights situation clear enough, he or she will be bashed. When Turkey starts talking about reintroducing capital punishment the instant reactions are that this will end the negotiations about EU membership. Capital punishment is a hard line for the EU, if your country has it, it is not considered to value human rights and is out, no further questions asked. The only people really criticizing the US here (in Germany) are usually haters, who glorify Russia. It cannot be about the money either, because China is an important partner, too. They have to put up with our obligatory human rights talk every time, while the US has not.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  Simple: From a distance the usa looks civilized enough that people forget that piece of barbarism exists. Also: Ocean inbetween.
- makomk 10y ago
  They can't. The EU requires its members not to extradite anyone to the US if there's any possibility that a death sentence might be applied. On the other hand, China has a whole lot more human rights issues than the US.
  - allendoerfer 10y ago
    The US holds itself to higher standards. It tries to get Europe to fight wars together in the name of these standards, so it should be held accountable. China is corrupt to the core, they do not claim anything else and nobody expects anything different. I am not saying that we can or should do anything about it, just that we have to point these things out if do not want to lose our face.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
BlytheSchuma 10y ago
No, fuck him. He deserves to die.
- sctb 10y ago
  Please comment civilly and substantively or not at all.
bArray 10y ago
I think if he's found not guilty he deserves some kind of compensation. You can't just keep somebody in limbo like that, knowing they will "die soon" for years. It is mental torture. What he's going through now is arguably worse than being found guilty. You can't justify that. They're punishing him and his family repeatedly. I think this is a perfect example of the US completely getting it wrong. If states can't get it right, I think the ability to arbitrarily punish serious crimes should be dissolved to upper government. Why it makes a difference what state you're in is beyond me. I thought it was something they were phasing out of.
- dec0dedab0de 10y ago
  I think this is a perfect example of the US completely getting it wrong. If states can't get it right, I think the ability to arbitrarily punish serious crimes should be dissolved to upper government. Why it makes a difference what state you're in is beyond me. I thought it was something they were phasing out of. Because if it were all handled at a higher level, there is a very good chance these types of policies would be in place for more people. Also, it would take more effort to change them. Concentration of power is not good, didn't you see star wars?
  - bArray 10y ago
    The reason it takes such effort to change things at the top is a problem that needs sorting in it's own right. There's a lot of corruption. Why do you think these policies would be in place for more? I this rubbish would be gone, weed legalised and it would make it easier to change the political system. In the UK the decentralised part of government is the worst bit.

76 points by samsolomon 10y ago

It seems to me that such laws punish people for associating with certain individuals who go on to commit crimes, requiring everyone to essentially be psychic or predict others' actions correctly 100% of the time to stay on the right side of the law. Either that or avoid associating with anyone. It's insane--and certainly unjust--that a law that makes such impossible and ridiculous demands of people is considered just.

jack9 10y ago
The facts of the topical case aren't that ludicrous. The link goes into enough detail where it's clear he was complicit in the murder, even if not present for the physical shooting.
djrogers 10y ago
Setting aside the death penalty aspect, this case is not about association - it's about explicit participation in a felony that resulted in the death of an innocent victim. Doesn't require a psychic to determine that committing a robbery with someone whom you know to own and carry a firearm could result in a death.
- detaro 10y ago
  From the article, the "explicit participation" isn't all that clear, and not required to be proven by the prosecution? (but it's not purely association either)
- vacri 10y ago
  > with someone whom you know to own and carry a firearm could result in a death In modern Texas with its 'carry' laws, this could be anyone. Besides, given the gun lobby rhetoric, 'guns don't kill people', so a death is 'just as likely' with a knife or any other tool to hand - even stuff already in the shop. After all, if someone is intent on killing you, 'they're going to do it whether or not they have a gun'.
Pica_soO 10y ago
If you are a judge and you are in "bad" company all day, does that make you by the spirit of this law make you complicit in future crimes if you release them out into the world?

gozur88 10y ago

>Legal experts say his case is rare, even in Texas, the execution capital of America — and a state that allows capital punishment for people who did not kill anyone or did not intend to kill. Forty six US states have Felony Murder statutes. I don't think this is all that rare for states with capital punishment. According to the wiki "...the death penalty may be imposed if the defendant is a major participant in the underlying felony and 'exhibits extreme indifference to human life'."

ivanca 10y ago
OMG I already exhibit extreme indifference to human life; I guess I already have half of the requirements for the death penalty.
refurb 10y ago
Correct! I'm not sure why Texas is being singled out here. California has this statue as well. If you participate in the commission of a felony crime and someone dies, then you are guilty of felony murder. They have something similar in the EU (e.g. Germany has "with deadly outcomes") where you receive an extended sentence even if you never intended for that person to die.
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  California has executed 13 people in 40 years, and none in the last ten. Texas has executed 500 people in the same time.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    On the other hand, there are more than 750 people on death row in California. It's not that we don't sentence them to death; it's just that we've created a system where we can't carry out the execution before they die of natural causes.

danso 10y ago

IMO, the real apparent injustice in this case is the prosecutor's use of a forensic psychiatrist who apparently has a cottage industry in testifying against defendants: > Wood was committed to a mental health hospital after he was found incompetent. A neuropsychologist had testified that Wood was delusional, unable to grasp the issues about his case and the reality facing him... > The writ of habeas corpus, filed in July, spotlights something else the jury did not know: the troubled history of a forensic psychiatrist whose testimony resulted in Wood’s death sentence. > James Grigson was no stranger to capital murder cases: By the time Wood went on trial, in 1998, Grigson said he had testified in 163 such cases. Prosecutors often sought his testimony to secure the ultimate punishment for defendants. Often, they were successful, earning Grigson a nickname: “Dr. Death.” > In 1995, three years before Wood’s trial, Grigson was expelled from the American Psychiatric Association and its Texas branch at that time, the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians, for predicting a defendant’s potential threat to society based solely on a hypothetical. The expulsions followed an investigation by the Texas association’s ethics committee, which cited Grigson’s “willfully narrow rendition of psychiatric knowledge.”

jrapdx3 10y ago
Obviously I don't know all the details of the case but I find it troublesome that a psychiatrist would render an opinion without examining the individual who is the object of the opinion. On its face this is unethical particularly in a situation where there's so much at stake. I'm aware that "assessment at a distance" is frequently sought, for example, reviewing clinical info in the medical record to determine if services were consistent with billing for reimbursement. This is often a question arising with Medicare and other 3rd party payers. However that's not unethical since it's quite different from providing a diagnosis or determining the qualities of a person's functioning without examining the individual. I have no idea if the doctor's conduct had come before the state licensing board, but it appears there would be substantial reason to consider that conduct "unprofessional" given the actions of the professional societies declaring the behavior as unethical. Normally such disciplinary action carries consider weight with licensing bodies. Most likely this avenue of doing something to keep the situation from recurring has already been explored, it would be a shame if it was overlooked.

provoc 10y ago

It astounds me that Americans think themselves to be the pinnacle of civilisation, when they still gleefully enact the death penalty. It disgusts me that this vile, barbarous country has so much power in the world.

techsupporter 10y ago

I'm a native Texan, which I point out solely to rebut the assertion that all--or even many--Texans are in favor of the death penalty, and I very much oppose the death penalty for reasons exactly such as this. Maybe this man committed a crime; it sure seems like he did. But maybe he didn't. Or maybe he didn't in the way that the state, or the psychiatrist, or the eyewitnesses claim he did. That's the problem with the death penalty: There are vanishingly few situations where we can be 100%, absolutely clear on whether a person did something that warrants permanently removing that person from existence. We are a nation of laws and we are also a nation of fallible human beings. If we could be completely certain, then perhaps I would be OK with the permanence of death. But we can't, so we shouldn't be killing criminals in the name of the people or the state. Because what happens if we are wrong? What happens if we are wrong 138 times[0]? Why have we forgotten that "[i]t is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer?" 0 - http://tcadp.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/TXDPFactSheet01-11.pdf http://tcadp.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/TXDPFactSheet01-...

ythl 10y ago
> There are vanishingly few situations where we can be 100%, absolutely clear on whether a person did something that warrants permanently removing that person from existence. So would you say that the vast majority of murder convictions leave at least a little room for doubt?
- techsupporter 10y ago
  Yes. "Beyond all reasonable doubt" is fine for throwing someone in jail and putting the key all but permanently out of reach. But I think that, as a society, we must retain the ability to say "oh shit we fucked up very much here is the door we are very sorry please take this huge sack of cash along with our sincere apologies" if or when we discover that our legal system made a massive error. In this day and age, were an exoneration to happen, I would also mandate that the state put up billboards in the person's home town and where the crime allegedly took place and run Internet ads and do lots of press interviews to get it out as widely as possible that someone has been exonerated.

myrryr 10y ago

This seems like an odd article to be posted here. The author has stopped posting comments and around the same time started just posting links to articles. Also he isn't posting any comments to any of the articles he is posting.... His twitter feed isn't mentioning anything like this... I wonder if his account is still under his control?

Aelinsaar 10y ago

Another case in point for why "Texas" is Norwegian slang for "Crazy".

allendoerfer 10y ago

I am neither Texan nor American, so this is an outsiders perspective: What I do not get is how the EU can just blatantly ignore this. When one of our politicians travels to an Arab country or to China and does not address the human rights situation clear enough, he or she will be bashed. When Turkey starts talking about reintroducing capital punishment the instant reactions are that this will end the negotiations about EU membership. Capital punishment is a hard line for the EU, if your country has it, it is not considered to value human rights and is out, no further questions asked. The only people really criticizing the US here (in Germany) are usually haters, who glorify Russia. It cannot be about the money either, because China is an important partner, too. They have to put up with our obligatory human rights talk every time, while the US has not.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Mithaldu 10y ago
Simple: From a distance the usa looks civilized enough that people forget that piece of barbarism exists. Also: Ocean inbetween.
makomk 10y ago
They can't. The EU requires its members not to extradite anyone to the US if there's any possibility that a death sentence might be applied. On the other hand, China has a whole lot more human rights issues than the US.
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  The US holds itself to higher standards. It tries to get Europe to fight wars together in the name of these standards, so it should be held accountable. China is corrupt to the core, they do not claim anything else and nobody expects anything different. I am not saying that we can or should do anything about it, just that we have to point these things out if do not want to lose our face.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

BlytheSchuma 10y ago

No, fuck him. He deserves to die.

sctb 10y ago
Please comment civilly and substantively or not at all.

bArray 10y ago

I think if he's found not guilty he deserves some kind of compensation. You can't just keep somebody in limbo like that, knowing they will "die soon" for years. It is mental torture. What he's going through now is arguably worse than being found guilty. You can't justify that. They're punishing him and his family repeatedly. I think this is a perfect example of the US completely getting it wrong. If states can't get it right, I think the ability to arbitrarily punish serious crimes should be dissolved to upper government. Why it makes a difference what state you're in is beyond me. I thought it was something they were phasing out of.

dec0dedab0de 10y ago
I think this is a perfect example of the US completely getting it wrong. If states can't get it right, I think the ability to arbitrarily punish serious crimes should be dissolved to upper government. Why it makes a difference what state you're in is beyond me. I thought it was something they were phasing out of. Because if it were all handled at a higher level, there is a very good chance these types of policies would be in place for more people. Also, it would take more effort to change them. Concentration of power is not good, didn't you see star wars?
- bArray 10y ago
  The reason it takes such effort to change things at the top is a problem that needs sorting in it's own right. There's a lot of corruption. Why do you think these policies would be in place for more? I this rubbish would be gone, weed legalised and it would make it easier to change the political system. In the UK the decentralised part of government is the worst bit.