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Death case yields a just-in-time lesson on law

By Mark Obbie

Allan Turner and Rosanna Ruiz wrote a compact, informative, and well-researched story for today's front page of the Houston Chronicle, informing the raging debate over tonight's scheduled execution of Jeff Wood. Wood faces the death sentence for the murder of a convenience store clerk during a robbery. Wood's accomplice was the shooter and was executed in 2002. The law in question is Texas' law of parties, making an accomplice just as blameworthy as the actual killer. It's easy to have opinions on such a law, but Turner and Ruiz inform that discussion not just with opinions by experts on both sides, but also with facts about how unusual Texas' law is, how often it's been used, what the Supreme Court has said under similar circumstances, and the historical roots of the law. Judging from the reader comments flooding the Chron's discussion board, the facts don't always get in the way of impassioned opinion. But at least the typical reader will come out of the story knowing more than when she went in. (Via Criminal Justice Journalists)

Full post as published by Lawbeat on August 21, 2008 (boomark / email).