U.S. | Fri Aug 19, 2016 7:03pm EDT

Texas appeals court halts execution of man who did not kill anyone

By Jon Herskovitz | AUSTIN, TEXAS

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday halted an execution planned for next week of a man convicted as an accomplice to a murder he did not commit in a case that raised questions about how the state applies the death penalty.

Jeffery Wood, 43, was scheduled to be executed on Aug. 24 by lethal injection. He was convicted of taking part in a 1996 convenience store robbery during which clerk Kriss Keeran was fatally shot.

In its decision, the appeals court asked a lower court to review his sentence and claims from Wood's lawyer that it was obtained in violation of due process because it was based on false testimony and false scientific evidence.

Wood's layer questioned a witness for the prosecution, forensic psychiatrist Dr. James Grigson, who told a court in the 1990s Wood would commit future acts of violence and was a threat to society.

Grigson, nicknamed "Dr. Death" for his willingness to testify against people facing the death penalty, was expelled from the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians and the American Psychiatric Association for ethical violations: making diagnoses of capital murder defendants without first examining them.

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