Executing This Man Isn't About Justice
I don't think we have a right to take a person's life, except in immediate self-defense -- though we have a right to punish them in harsh ways to the limit of death, if they've taken a life or lives.
Wonkblog's Max Ehrenfreund writes in the WaPo about how there's a lack of evidence that the death penalty deters crime:
Despite extensive research on the question, criminologists have been unable to assemble a strong case that capital punishment deters crime."We're very hard pressed to find really strong evidence of deterrence," said Columbia Law School's Jeffrey Fagan.
...Fagan pointed to New York as an example. Former Gov. George Pataki (R) reinstated capital punishment in New York in 1995, and although no prisoners were executed, the law remained in place until the New York Court of Appeals struck it down in 2004. Whether or not criminals faced the threat of death seemed to have little effect on their behavior. "New York's homicide decline has continued before the capital-punishment statute, through the capital-punishment statute, and after the capital-punishment statute," Fagan said.
Fagan and two collaborators recently compared murder rates in Hong Kong, where capital punishment was abolished in 1993, and Singapore, where a death sentence is mandatory for murder and other crimes and is typically administered within a year and a half. The researchers found little difference between the two Asian metropolises.
What's going through a criminal's mind in committing a crime?
Research suggests than criminals are mainly concerned about whether they'll be caught, not what might happen to them afterward.
Too often, innocent people are on death row. Just as our justice system is designed to err on the side of letting a guilty person go free, lest we punish an innocent one, our punishment system should be designed to err on the side of not executing an innocent one.
The same should go for one whose guilt in a murder largely involved being there -- in a truck outside -- when it happened. Here's a piece from the LA Times Editorial Board, "Who is Texas executing now? A man with no direct involvement in the murder for which he'll be put to death":
Early on a January morning in 1996, Jeff Wood sat in a borrowed pickup truck while his friend Daniel Reneau entered a convenience store in Kerrville, Texas, ostensibly to buy snacks. Instead, Reneau shot and killed the clerk. Six years later, Reneau was put to death for the killing, and now Texas wants to execute Wood under its "law of parties," which holds people criminally liable in some cases if they aid or encourage others in committing a crime -- even though trial testimony showed that Wood did not know Reneau was carrying a gun or planning to rob the store.Wood is by no means an innocent man. He and Reneau had previously discussed with two friends who worked at the store, including the future victim, how they could make off with cash kept in a small office safe. Their first feeble attempt failed when clerk Kris Keeran, who had backed away from the earlier theft planning, discovered and secured an office door that Reneau had surreptitiously pried open.
Wood and Reneau went home and a few hours later left again, planning to stop at the store for snacks en route to returning a borrowed pickup truck to Wood's brother. Wood told Reneau to leave his gun home because the plan to steal the safe was off, but Reneau sneaked a .22-caliber handgun into his pants anyway. At the store, Wood sat in the truck as Reneau entered, privately intending to scare Keeran into giving him the safe. Keeran balked; Reneau shot him once in the face, killing him. The gunshot drew Wood into the store where Reneau, still armed, ordered Wood to remove the store security tapes as Reneau took the safe.
There were a lot of problems with Wood's trial, including the fact that it occurred at all after an initial finding that he suffered from delusions and had an IQ of 80 -- and was therefore incompetent to help in his own defense. What's more, he received ineffective counsel and he was convicted, in part, on the testimony of a disreputable psychiatrist who argued that Wood posed a future violent threat -- prerequisite for the death penalty in Texas -- even though the psychiatrist never interviewed him. Those are significant but separate issues from the effort to execute Wood under the rarely invoked law of parties. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, since 1985 only 10 people have been executed nationwide who did not themselves commit a murder or contract with another to commit it, and half of those cases were in Texas.
It is possible that Wood knew Reneau had a gun on him. Jordan Smith writes at The Intercept:
In one of two statements to police, Wood apparently acknowledged that he was aware that Reneau had a gun on him the morning of the murder.Wood's family and attorneys dispute that narrative. There was a plot to rob the store of its cash receipts, but Keeran and another store employee were in on the plan, they say, which was actually supposed to occur on January 1. When the employees backed out, Wood did too, and so on the morning of January 2, he had no idea that Reneau intended to carry out the crime, let alone kill anyone. And it was not unusual for Wood to drop by the store multiple times a day, so the simple fact of going to the store that morning did not ring any alarm bells for him. "The plan was supposed to happen the day before, you know," said Wood's sister Terri Been. "It ceased to be a plan when it didn't happen on the date it was scheduled for."
After the gunshot rang out, Wood entered the store and, under threat from Reneau, helped him to carry out the store's safe and remove a video surveillance tape. Terri Been says it is clear that Wood is guilty of robbery -- despite the fact that Reneau threatened the life of Wood's young daughter if he did not help to remove the safe -- and she agrees that he should be punished accordingly. But, as the U.S. Supreme Court has noted, robbery alone is not punishable by death. "People who murder people get out of prison in 15 years," she told a television reporter during the rally outside the governor's mansion. "My brother is on death row for robbery."
This death penalty in this case also runs contrary to the Eighth Amendment:
In Wood's case the imposition of the death penalty seems almost certainly unconstitutional, given the U.S. Supreme Court's 1982 decision in Enmund v. Florida. In that case, Earl Enmund was tried and sentenced to death for the murder of an elderly couple committed in the course of a robbery, even though he was not present during the robbery or the murders. Instead, he was sitting in the getaway car while the crime was committed. Florida's highest court agreed that Enmund was a party to the robbery scheme and upheld the conviction and sentence, ruling that it was irrelevant whether he was present or whether he intended to kill anyone. The Supreme Court disagreed, noting that the death penalty was an excessive punishment for a robber. "Here, the focus must be on the petitioner's culpability, not on those who committed the robbery and killings," Justice Byron White wrote for the majority. "He did not kill or intend to kill, and thus his culpability is different from that of the robbers who killed, and it is impermissible for the State to treat them alike and attribute to petitioner the culpability of those who killed the victims."...In 1987, the court issued a second opinion on the matter in a case known as Tison v. Arizona, carving out an exception to Enmund if the defendant was substantially involved in the crime at hand and "had the culpable mental state of reckless indifference to human life."
In short, Hampton argues, it would appear that Wood's execution, like Enmund's, should be barred by the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Yet, this argument has never been made in any of Wood's appeals, and one of Wood's current lawyers, Jared Tyler, who has worked on the case since 2008, said he believes strongly that a court should consider the issue before it's too late. "It is correct that no court has determined whether Mr. Wood's execution is barred by the Eighth Amendment because [the punishment] would be disproportionate to his culpability," Tyler wrote in an email to The Intercept. "We believe a court should do so before he is executed."
The combination of factors here -- ineffective counsel, low IQ, mental illness, and an "expert" witness who pronounced on his psychology without even talking to him -- also make this an execution that shouldn't happen.
Yet Wood is set to be executed August 24.
This is not how we should be behaving in a civilized society -- if we want to be a civilized society.
Proceed.
Lastango at August 7, 2016 7:35 AM
Tell a person who supports capital punishment that it's not a deterrent, and they will tell you, without even a hint of irony, that of course it's a deterrent, because if you execute a person, that person will never commit the crime again.
Patrick at August 7, 2016 7:44 AM
If he suffered from delusions and has an IQ of 80 he probably shouldn't have been driving.
Does the death penalty figure into the planning of violent crime? Jeffrey Fagan says no. I don't care. Planning a violent crime is abnormal behavior. How they arrive at that decision is not a rational process.
The death penalty is more about the rest of us. In Texas they've put in an express lane, as Ron White puts it. In Britain it's been abolished for 40 years. In China it's on the decline. In Russia it's been suspended for the last 20 years. Russia was ahead of us on the slavery issue as well; though for tax purposes, not human rights.
All that said, I don't think Jeff Wood has earned a lethal injection.
Canvasback at August 7, 2016 8:16 AM
Yep, that mean and evil George Pataki (R), all by himself, gave New York State the authority to kill a prisoner. No input at all from legislature.
According to the New York Times, "The measure passed by a 94-52 vote in the Democratic-controlled Assembly at 4:37 this morning after nearly 12 hours of debate. It passed in the Republican-controlled Senate by a 38-19 vote Monday evening after about four and a half hours of debate."
Conan the Grammarian at August 7, 2016 8:43 AM
If you're killed by a man with an 80 IQ, are you any less dead than if you'd been killed by a man with a 120 IQ? Is, by virtue of a lower IQ, the violent man with an 80 IQ any less a danger to society and those around him? Focusing on IQ is biasing the argument from the beginning.
It sounds like this man was not in on the planning or execution of the robbery and had nothing to do with the shooting of the clerk. And, most of all, that he is not now and was not then, a threat to society at large. Therefore, a prison sentence would seem more appropriate for his punishment than death.
Ricky Ray Rector is often brought up in conversations like this. After shooting three people (killing one) at a dance hall over a dispute about the cover charge, he shot in the back the police officer who had come to negotiate his surrender at his mother's house. After leaving his mother's house, he shot himself in the head, lobotomizing himself.
Sentenced to die, he was later executed in a media circus overseen by then presidential candidate and Arkansas governor, Bill Clinton. His mental condition was hotly debated; he saved the pecan pie from his last meal "for later."
The police officer and the nightclub patron were both still dead. They had been shot by a legally-sane Rector.
Although Rector no longer posed a danger to society after his self-inflicted lobotomy (an educated guess at best), the police officer and the nightclub patron were still dead. Who pays for those deaths? If you could have returned Rector to sanity, would he have been able to live with himself having shot to death two people, one of whom was a childhood friend?
In Starship Troopers, Heinlein asks the same question. Could a person, having committed a heinous crime while legally insane, live with himself if transitioned to sanity? Perhaps it's not ours to decide for him, but it is ours to decide what price another's life and what the cost for violating society's sense of security and dignity is. And sometimes that cost will be ugly.
Conan the Grammarian at August 7, 2016 9:29 AM
Conan:
Without intending to antagonize you (this time), you could argue that the murderer with the 120 IQ presents a greater danger than the man with the 80 IQ. 80 is ten points above what is considered mentally retarded. Logically, the murderer with the 120 IQ could think of better ways to kill, and be better able to cover his tracks. I believe Isab once told us that most murderers actually get away with it. Seems to me that the murderer with the 120 IQ would be the more likely candidate to get away with it than the 80.
Patrick at August 7, 2016 9:42 AM
As a (small L) libertarian I believe that the group (i.e. Society) has no more rights than the individual. The individual cannot kidnap people (taking them against their will and placing them somewhere against they do not wish to be). The individual cannot enslave people (to seize their person and force them to work for the benefit of others). The individual cannot rob people (to seize their property and dispose of it for the benefit of another). The individual DOES have the right to kill another who initiates force against them however, thus the collective (society) has the right to kill such an individual as well. The person who so disregards the rights, life, liberty and property of others to such an extent as to initiate force against another is demonstrating his (or her) contempt for the rights of all and such an individual needs to be removed from society. If such an individual voluntarily submitted to lesser punishment it might be imposed if the original victim agreed but that would be a separate matter all together.
In this case, the fact that this individual was sub-normal is immaterial so long as he had the ability to make a moral choice. Simply put, if he participated in a crime, knew it was wrong and did it anyway, then he is indeed responsible for the harm that was inflicted even if he had no part in the greater crime. Likewise, how much more cruel is it to cage a human being for the rest of his (or her) life with the lowest level of human beings? Imagine the horror of being trapped with those who have victimized others and who will victimize you in horrendous ways unless you demonstrate your willingness to harm them in like fashion before they can. Is it truly justice to subject people to that? Or is it revenge? And which do you truly want?
warhawke223 at August 7, 2016 9:51 AM
> I don't think we have a right
> to take a person's life, except
> in immediate self-defense -- though
> we have a right to punish them
> in harsh ways to the limit
> of death, if they've taken a
> life or lives.
What could "to the limit of death" possibly mean other than abject torture?
Crid at August 7, 2016 10:26 AM
"Tell a person who supports capital punishment that it's not a deterrent, and they will tell you, without even a hint of irony, that of course it's a deterrent, because if you execute a person, that person will never commit the crime again."
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Ignored in this discussion is the plain fact that criminals, when released, commit more crimes. Yes, murderers get released - into an environment that won't hire an ex-con to man the takeout window.
I don't expect you to thank the prison system for giving the man who beats and robs you a second chance. That would be irony.
The argument about deterrence is always advanced as if it were the whole story about crime and punishment - and it's not. If you don't think it's at least odd that a prisoner is immune to budget cuts anywhere else in public policy, that (s)he will go on with three hots and a cot and whatever else people think would make keeping him in a cage "humane"... you're inadvertently thinking that we have the money and time to confine the most dangerous people alive for as long as they wish to continue.
The death penalty is lessened as a deterrent because justice is neither swift nor sure. The con can count on legions of people whose special interest is to see that (s)he survives.
Oh, yeah - let's call him a politically-correct name, too. That'll make the bars softer, the barbed wire duller.
It doesn't make you compassionate to spare the obviously savage the same thing (s)he would have gotten from a properly-prepared intended victim. It just makes you softer-headed than the thug.
You're virtue-signalling. Nothing more.
What is lost in the comfort of the sofa, the college office, or in front of the keyboard is that these people killed someone who had rights just like yours. In some of those cases - which we treat individually - the crime was so savage and bloody that even newsmedia selling fear don't publish the crime scene photos.
I wonder: have any of you seeking to set aside the one sure chance to prevent a future crime by such an animal, and to dispose of the issue (s)he caused, ever seen a crime scene photo, much less been there?
Or is that (safely!) just on TV for you, when you tune in CSI or something, so you can pretend it's just Hollywood special effects?
Radwaste at August 7, 2016 10:27 AM
IQ of 80 seems a bit of a stretch--he graduated from high school, has a wife and kids, and had discussed the crime with the shooter. He argued with his first set of attorneys, and thus was found incompetent to stand trial which was reversed. I agree that he should not be executed.
KatrC at August 7, 2016 10:41 AM
But you're still dead. Do you care if your murderer was retarded or a genius?
The chap with the IQ of 120 may be better equipped to hide his tracks, but is he more or less likely to kill? Does his crime deserve greater punishment? Is he a greater danger to society?
The person who kills someone has taken away "all he's got and all he's ever gonna have." Do we excuse the killer because his IQ is low? Or is highlighting low-IQ death penalty convicts a way of biasing the argument against the death penalty by ignoring the fact that someone's life was arbitrarily ended by a willful act of the murderer?
Conan the Grammarian at August 7, 2016 10:47 AM
Auto-erotic asphyxiation?
Conan the Grammarian at August 7, 2016 10:52 AM
I oppose the death penalty but not because I think it is wrong. I opposes it because I think it is foolish to give *anyone* the power to kill without accountability.
parabarbarian at August 7, 2016 11:38 AM
Virtue signalling?
"Virtue signalling" is a term made for morons who somehow managed to attain adulthood having missed the perfectly good, tried-and-true terminology that we come to know as "self-righteous indignation."
I don't believe in inventing new terms when old terms work fine.
And I wasn't being self-righteously indignant, or virtue signalling at all.
I have gotten into discussion with people about the death penalty before, and when I point out that the existence of the death penalty, aside from being the most expensive punishment in America, does not deter people from committing crimes, they, with uncanny invariability, reply, "Of course the death penalty is a deterrent. No one executed ever commits the crime again."
It's as if people that I would assume are otherwise unrelated all learned in unison this non-rebuttal which I assume is supposed to be humorous. Maybe they all go to the same websites.
Conan, I guess I didn't adequately spell out the point I'm trying to make.
Assume two people, of equally violent bent, are out committing murders. One has an IQ of 80, the other has the rather lackluster, but supposedly above average IQ of 120. I'm suggesting the smarter might be the more dangerous of the two. Because he's more intelligent, he's more likely to get away with more murders than the duller one. Because he's more intelligent, he's more adept at covering his tracks. Because he's smarter, he's more likely to accomplish more murders before he's caught than the dullard.
Yes, I agree that it's irrelevant to a corpse what the IQ of his murderer happens to be.
I'm simply suggesting that the smarter murderer will be a more prolific murderer than the dullard precisely because he is smarter, consequently a greater danger to society.
Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer were both very intelligent men. Would they have been so successful if they had IQs of 80? I genuinely doubt that. And I think you do, too.
Patrick at August 7, 2016 12:03 PM
Amy said:
"Just as our justice system is designed to err on the side of letting a guilty person go free, lest we punish an innocent one, our punishment system should be designed to err on the side of not executing an innocent one."
I agree. While I have no qualms about the state putting someone to death for murder I do have a problem with the fact that the justice system (not just the US's; but any system) is run by flawed people. While not everyone is crooked - in fact, many are trying to do right; they still make mistakes.
If someone is in prison for a crime he did not commit and is later proven innocent; the state can try to make up for his time by paying him or doing something else. Money does not solve everything; but, it is at least an attempt at "fixing things."
However, if a man is executed and later proven innocent, just how does the state make it up to him? "Hey, dead guy, we got your good name cleared" just doesn't work.
charles at August 7, 2016 4:02 PM
I believe that the death penalty for murder is for closure.
The death penalty for non-murder is a solution for our outrage at a human being was treated so cruelly wrong that only a monster could do such a thing. Monsters are fearful creatures so alien to us that death is the only option.
It's only expensive because we refuse to be adult about it and fix our legal problems.
Bob in Texas at August 7, 2016 4:07 PM
There is that word I despise - closure. There is no such thing, even if the person who committed the murder of your loved one IS executed. The pain goes on.
Mr. Wood should not be executed. His intent is not proven, by any means. That so-called psychiatrist should be jailed as well.
Perri Morrison at August 7, 2016 6:00 PM
"I oppose the death penalty but not because I think it is wrong. I opposes it because I think it is foolish to give *anyone* the power to kill without accountability."
So just which person or group has this lack of accountablility you mention? You, struggling to defend yourself? The justice system?
Would that be the one incapable of protecting an inmate from prison rape, at the same time it cannot apparently convict a criminal without reasonable doubt?
Say it out loud: "Tim McVeigh should be alive today, and society should support him for the rest of his life while his victims struggle on."
Radwaste at August 7, 2016 6:24 PM
There is no "harsh punishment up to" the death penalty. You yourself are against solitary confinement: meaning prison employees and fellow inmates will Always be at risk from these people. If they know they're never getting out, and won't be killed, they really have no reason to restrict their violent desires at all, do they? We can't make them work all day, can't restrict media access, taking away book privileges isn't likely to be effective with most of this population......and we certainly can't deny them food or sleep. So what, exactly, do you Amy suppose we do, to deter crime WITHIN prison? I don't honestly care if dome dipshit thinks "wait, will they kill me for this?" before robbing a 7-11. I care that we can have leverage over those already inside. Because if we cant....why NOT take out a guard or infirmary nurse? And: that some truly heinous people continue to breathe air and drink soda and hope for a change for the better in their future......is an insult to society that just should not be borne.
momof4 at August 7, 2016 7:10 PM
> So just which person or group
> has this lack of accountablility
> you mention?
☑
Crid at August 7, 2016 7:13 PM
Why should we be a civilized society?
Michael Ejercito at August 7, 2016 8:08 PM
I think the death penalty should only be an option in three scenarios.
1. Treason
2. A murder case with eyewitnesses or video evidence
2. Perjury in a treason or murder trial where the death penalty was an option, REGARDLESS if the defendant in that case was executed or not
lujlp at August 7, 2016 9:36 PM
Just to set the record straight, there is no such thing as "closure." And why would you want such a thing, anyway? All that would mean is that you've become numb to a certain aspect of your experience.
If a relative of yours was horribly murdered, why would you want to become numb, or at least less sensitive, to your loss?
Chris Hitchens made this commonsense observation while talking to Anderson Cooper in his dying days as he talks about his mother's suicide. It's a very touching story, once you look past Anderson Cooper's insufferable obsequiousness.
And he's correct. "Closure" is not a thing.
Patrick at August 8, 2016 3:04 AM
Whoops. Sorry. Did the link thing wrong. Here's Hitchen, the link is set to start when he begins talking about his mother's death. He gets to what he thinks about "closure" shortly after.
Patrick at August 8, 2016 5:58 AM
Hey, lujlp. I can definitely appreciate how you want the death penalty to be used sparingly and only when we're absolutely certain.
But I have a minor quibble with: "2. A murder case with eyewitnesses or video evidence."
Isab would be the person to ask, but if I recall correctly, eyewitness testimony is actually extraordinarily unreliable. You wouldn't think so, but it is.
We actually truly remember very little, and our imagination filsl in the gaps. For instance, two witnesses who supposedly saw the scuffle between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin actually recall it significantly different.
One witness said that the person with the orange jacket (Zimmerman) was on top. Another person said it was a guy with the dark hoodie (Martin) was on top.
I don't think either one was lying. Someone's recollection simply wasn't accurate. In the end, we had to rely on the fact that the back George Zimmerman's clothing was wet from lying on the wet ground (it was raining) and covered in grass, to say nothing of the fact that he sustained head injuries and a broken nose, while Martin had only a slight cut on the back of one of his knuckles (and, of course, the bullet wound that killed him).
Patrick at August 8, 2016 6:09 AM
You never know. Both were rated high on the IQ scale, but both also had a feral cunning that those tests don't always measure. In addition, those two had a few other things going their way.
Bundy moved around quite a bit. In an age when there existed no national crime intelligence database, each local law enforcement agency thought they were dealing with a local killer. That caused them to miss things that would have pointed them right to Bundy. People around Bundy also ignored the signs of sociopathy, mostly due to his physical attractiveness.
Dammer was aided by the stupidity of the local police agents, two of whom returned one of his escaped victims to him; and by his neighbors who ignored the fact that his apartment smelled like an abattoir. Dahmer dropped out of Ohio State due to alcoholism. So, by the time he was committing multiple murders to make his zombie sex slave, his intelligence may have dropped somewhat.
According to a Radford University study, the average IQ of serial killers so far caught and arrested was 94.8, which means that for all the genius serial killers out there, there are several who are borderline morons. That study found that intelligence correlates to method of killing, not to propensity to kill.
Conan the Grammarian at August 8, 2016 6:37 AM
You wouldn't think so, but it is.
I am aware, however I'd rather limit the death penalty to direct testimony as opposed to logical conclusions based on forensic and circumstantial evidence, especially given how many people the Innocence Project has sprung
lujlp at August 8, 2016 9:55 AM
Conan, it might be interesting to rate the intelligence of serial killers and found out if there's any correlation between their success and their intelligence.
Patrick at August 8, 2016 9:59 AM
Patrick, in the linked PDF, I think there's a table of body count versus IQ score.
Conan the Grammarian at August 8, 2016 10:49 AM
Found that table. Interestingly it argues for being lenient with the smart ones. They use overly complicated methods that aren't effective. Looks like you need an IQ of 90-99 to be an effective serial killer. But I may be reading the table incorrectly. I don't find their format informative.
I did see that men are stealing all the good serial killer jobs from women. Back in 1910 women were 25% of serial killers. They are only 5% today. A clear case of serial killer employer sexism if I ever saw one.
Ben at August 9, 2016 7:36 PM
Leave a comment