This Guy Will Be Executed In Texas Wednesday For Sitting In Getaway Car During Fatal Robbery
#news Texas to execute man who didn’t kill: Jeffrey Wood didn’t kill anyone. Everybody, including the prosecu… https://t.co/uZbSGMPrSf
— CNN News .2k (@cnn_cnn9) August 19, 2016
CNN — Jeffrey Wood didn’t kill anyone. Everybody, including the prosecuting attorney, agrees.
But unless a last-minute commutation is granted by Texas’ governor, Wood will be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday night for his role in a deadly robbery 20 years ago.
In 1996, a 22-year-old Wood waited in a pickup truck while his friend Daniel Reneau went inside a gas station in Kerrville, Texas, to steal the store‘s safe. Reneau ended up killing the clerk during the robbery.
Most states allow a distinction between accomplices and those who physically carry out the crime.
But in Texas, sitting in that truck and taking part in the robbery is enough to get Wood convicted of murder and onto death row.
Want to start by calling a spade a spade here: you shouldn’t rob people or help people rob people. That’s both illegal and morally wrong. But overall I’m a little torn on this. Sitting in a pickup while your buddy hops in to hold up a gas station (you think) isn’t the worst crime in the world. Definitely doesn’t deserve execution. I used to twist up ketchup packets and throw them at cars with my brother Kyle. What if Kyle decided to throw a stone one time and killed somebody? Is that on me? I sure hope not.
The other part of me says rules is rules. You know the rules when you play the game. If you’re gonna go hold up a gas station with a violent buddy of yours you should know that, if things get violent, you’re in fucking Texas and Texas DOES NOT fuck around. They will execute the shit out of you for just about anything. Those aren’t my rules, but rules is rules. Like when your friend hits a golf ball 2 feet out of bounds then bitches at you when you say it’s out of bounds. Dude, you’re out of bounds. I didn’t make the rules.
So yeah, tough break for Mr. Wood but you gotta know the rules. Don’t play the game if you can’t handle the outcome.