28 November 2018 :

In an unsigned opinion designated not for publication, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has rejected a Kerr County trial court recommendation that Jeffery Wood's death sentence be overturned because it was the product of “false and misleading testimony” and “false scientific evidence” from a prosecution psychiatrist. The Kerr County District Attorney had conceded that the prosecution would not have presented testimony from Dr. James Grigson had it known that Grigson had been expelled from national and state psychiatric associations because of his unethical practices in making future dangerousness assessments. In an August 2017 letter to the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole, Lucy Wilke, the prosecutor in Wood’s original trial who sought the death penalty against him, wrote to ask that the board recommend to Gov. Greg Abbott that Wood’s sentence be reduced to life in prison. She wrote that she was an early-career attorney at the time of the trial and would not have asked Grigson to testify had she known about his expulsion from the two psychiatric organizations. After Wood’s case was sent back to Kerr County in 2016 following the stay of execution, the state filed a response saying that relief should be denied. The trial court originally determined that there were “no existing controverted, previously unresolved factual issues material to the legality of applicant’s confinement.” After a continuing back and forth with the parole board, the trial court and the Court of Criminal Appeals through 2017 and into 2018, the trial court eventually recommended execution relief be granted to Wood, 45, White. The Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed on Wednesday. Wood was sentenced to death on March 3, 1996. His death sentence stems from the state's so-called Law of Parties. On Jan. 2, 1996, Wood and Daniel Reneau robbed a gas station. Wood was waiting in a truck while Reneau went into the gas station and stole a packed safe, surveillance VCR and other items, according to court documents. Reneau fatally shot 31-year-old store clerk Kris Keeran after he refused to comply with Reneau’s threats. Both men were convicted and sentenced to death, and Reneau was executed in 2002. Wood’s original execution was set for Aug. 24, 2016. But six days before he was scheduled to die, the Court of Criminal Appeals halted his execution and sent the case back to the original trial court in Kerr County to re-examine whether Dr. James P. Grigson, a psychiatrist who testified in Wood’s 1998 murder trial, gave false or misleading statements. Two judges of the Appeal Court today dissented.