Steven Michael Woods

[thinkinkmesa]

Steven Michael Woods

Steven Woods, TX inmate #999447 has an execution date of Sept. 13 2011.
He is sentnenced under the Law of Parties.

www.texaskills.com/

[thinkinkmesa]

Reposted from Facebook/

Steven Woods' - Wrongfully Conv
icted & Scheduled for Execution on 9/13/11
by Steven Woods on Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 7:10am.

I was wrongfully convicted by the state of Texas for capital murder in 2002. Three months after I was convicted, the real murderer, Marcus Rhodes stood up in court and testified that he was the one who knowingly and intentionally killed both victims. He never once mentioned me. There is no physical evidence connecting me to the crime scene. Marcus' fingerprints were all over the murder weapons. Mine were not. The victims' backpacks were in Marcus' car, which was littered with bullet casings. Most, if not ALL of what the prosecution said about me was false. My family will be happy to confirm this. It makes no difference though. I am here to take blame for this crime, so that a rich, well-connected family would not have to deal with negative media and the burdens that come with death row. How convenient. Well, not really. Not for my family. The next time my mom will get to hug me or even hold my hand will be this September, after I'm dead. Funny how at some point I believed I was going to have a future. I somehow convinced myself that everyone would know that something just isn't right, and they'd act on it. So much for that.



I'm not sure when I lost all hope. Not that it matters. Either way, all I can ever do is sit around in confinement 23 hours a day, waiting to die, expecting it. Imagine waking up every day in a hot humid cell, knowing that you didn't do anything to find yourself there. Knowing that so many people know that they got the wrong person, but no one can be bothered to waste their time fighting for you. Knowing that you will be executed on September 13 2011, at the age of 31. It will be a Tuesday. At around 5:45 a man in a suit will come to get me. He'll have 6-8 large men with him in case I'm not willing to cooperate. We'll go about fifteen feet to another room. This one's centerpiece will be a kind of table, it will be the same table all my friends lied down on before they died. Each side of the table will have boards and heavy duty straps. They'll get me on this table and strap me in, and a man who isn't a doctor, but will be wearing a doctor's smock, will put a shunt in my vein. I'll be completely restrained, barely able to even move my head. Facing the table, there will be windows. The curtains will be pushed aside, so that some spectators can look at me die. On one side people are hoping for my painful death, the other completely devastated by what's about to happen. I will have a moment to make a kind of statement, never to talk again.



Time's up. Someone behind a window will push a button and poison will flow from a hose into the shunt in my vein; First an anesthetic, second something to shut my lungs down and third a sedative and enough barbiturates to explode my heart. I will suffer both cardiac arrest and suffocation. It just does not seem right. I've seen my friends go through it and it terrifies me. Even writing about it gives me a panic attack. Can you imagine it? What it would be like? The build up sitting in a cage for a decade, completely removed from the world without having any human contact what-so-ever? Living with the knowledge that whenever they decide it's your time they can simply shut you off? I hope you don't ever have to experience it. I'll take some kind of terminal illness over this hell anytime. Then at least there would be a reason or explanation for it...I just don't get it.



PLEASE REPOST AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE! :-) Thanks!



www.texaskills.com

www.savesteven.info

www.facebook.com/savestevenwoods





To write Steven personally:

Steven Woods #999427

Polunsky Unit

3872 FM 350 South

Livingston, TX 77351

USA

.

[kma367]

Woods was not convicted under "law of the parties." He was convicted as the actual shooter and there was testimony from numerous witnesses to whom Woods bragged about the murders. He was wearing one of Ron Whitehead's hats.

When initially questioned by police, Woods did not tell them the fairy tale about lighting Ron's cigarette and hearing thunder and feeling rain. He told them that he and Rhodes were leading Ron and Bethena to a guy called "Hippy's" house in The Colony and that they were separated while drag racing. Woods then fled Texas to New Orleans, Idaho and California, where he continued bragging about killing Ron and Bethena. He was turned in by a friend he ran into in California and extradited to Texas.

Marcus Rhodes turned himself in and named Woods as the killer. He ultimately pled guilty under law of the parties because he supplied the weapons and transportation and knew that Woods planned to kill Ron that night when they left Insomnia in Deep Elum.

At trial, Woods presented a false alibi, while pointing the finger at Rhodes. In his various appeals post-conviction, Woods never once raised the "issue of the glove," which renders it moot at this point.

Below is a link to the U.S. Fifth Circuit opinion rejecting Woods' appeal of his habeas claim:

www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions%5Cunpub%5C09/09-70027.0.wpd.pdf

Below are links to three articles from the time of the original trial and a link to a factually accurate article about Woods' responsibility for the murders:

goo.gl/Ya13N

goo.gl/zuIt4

goo.gl/1RaJ6

www.star-telegram.com/2011/09/11/3359008/execution-set-for-tuesday-in-2001.html

kma367

[thinkinkmesa]

Texas Moratorium Network: Urge Rick Perry to Stop Execution of Steven Woods on Tuesday Sept 13

Excerpt

Grave Doubts about Verdict
There's more, though: Woods, his lawyers and his friends insist he is innocent.
There are indeed grave doubts about the verdict. Marcus Rhodes, Wood's co-defendant and a former friend, has admitted to the double murder in question and already been sentenced -- but to life in prison. Rhodes' DNA was found on the weapons, but not that of Woods.
Yet all courts so far have rejected Wood's appeals. Even the US Supreme Court refused to take up the case. Alex Calhoun, Wood's defense lawyer, has now filed a clemency petition with Governor Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole, as a last resort.
Woods was deprived of his constitutional rights and convicted based on "false or misleading testimony," Calhoun alleges in the 20-page petition to Perry. Furthermore, the prosecution had "illegally withheld significant evidence."
"I am sure that the Board of Pardons and Paroles will, using their judgment and innate sense of fairness, recognize the injustice and patent unfairness," Calhoun told SPIEGEL ONLINE. However, this sounds like overblown optimism: Since he took office in December 2000, Perry has not once shown clemency in a capital punishment case -- sometimes in spite of doubts. And it is highly unlikely that Woods would be the first person to get it.
Woods' story started as a horrifying criminal case. On May 2, 2001, two people were brutally murdered in a deserted field north of Dallas: Ronald Whitehead, 21, and Bethena Brosz, 19. Whitehead was shot in the head six times, Brosz twice as well as once in the knee. Both also had their throats cut. Whitehead's dead body was found hours later, Brosz was still alive but died 36 hours later in a hospital.
Whitehead was a drug dealer, Brosz a chance acquaintance. The 19-year-old planned to study astronomy. "Beth was just in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people," her mother Janet Shires wrote on a memorial website. The suspects in the murders were tried separately. Woods, then 21, was sentenced to death in August 2002. Witnesses had claimed that he had bragged about the murders. His lawyers didn't dispute his presence at the murder scene but named Rhodes the killer.
Before Rhodes' trial could start in January of 2003, he confessed to killing Whitehead and Brosz alone -- without implicating Woods. In a plea deal, he was sentenced to life, not death.
For years Woods has tried to overturn his sentence -- unsuccessfully. Texas law is against him: Even if he had never pulled the trigger or swung the knives, he'd still be as guilty as the killer by his mere presence. In Texas that's called the Law of Parties.
The Polunsky Unit where Woods has been kept since is infamous for its terrible conditions. In 2004, dozens of death-row inmates went on hunger strike to protest their treatment, Woods among them.

More;
stopexecutions.blogspot.com/2011/09/urge-rick-perry-to-stop-execution-of.html

[kma367]

Rhodes did not plead guilty to committing the murders without implicating Woods. That is a myth created by Woods and his supporters. He pled guilty to capital murder because he was there, knew what was going to occur and provided the weapons and transportation. His conviction is under "law of the parties," not Woods'.

There is no doubt about Woods' guilt.

kma367

ETA: Woods' request for stay and writ were denied today by the U.S. Supreme Court.

[thinkinkmesa]

Guilt or innocence...
His execution has created more victims...