[CUADPUpdate] STOP CALLS: Perry commutes sentences of man scheduled to die Thursday

[Abraham J. Bonowitz]

Hi All,

amazing news....

paz!

--abe





Perry commutes sentences of man scheduled to die Thursday

By MICHAEL GRACZYK
Associated Press Writer

HUNTSVILLE, Texas ­ Gov. Rick Perry accepted a 
recommendation from the state parole board and 
said Thursday he would spare condemned prisoner 
Kenneth Foster from execution and commute his sentence to life.

Foster had been scheduled to die Thursday evening.

"After carefully considering the facts of this 
case, along with the recommendation from the 
Board of Pardons and Paroles, I believe the right 
and just decision is to commute Foster's sentence 
from the death penalty to life imprisonment," Perry said in a statement.

"I am concerned about Texas law that allowed 
capital murder defendants to be tried 
simultaneously and it is an issue I think the legislature should examine."

The seven-member parole board had voted 6-1 to recommend the commutation.

Perry was not obligated to accept the highly 
unusual recommendation from the board whose 
members he appoints. The commutation is the first 
in his more than eight years in office this close 
to an actual execution. The board decision was 
announced about seven hours before Foster was 
scheduled to die. Perry's announcement came about an hour later.

Foster was the getaway driver and not the actual 
shooter in the slaying of a 25-year-old man in San Antonio 11 years ago.

Foster acknowledged he and his friends were up to 
no good as he drove them around San Antonio in a 
rental car and robbed at least four people before 
the slaying of Michael LaHood Jr.

"It was wrong," Foster, 30, said recently from 
death row. "I don't want to downplay that. I was 
wrong for that. I was too much of a follower. I'm straight up about that."

Their robbery spree, while they were all high on 
alcohol and marijuana, turned deadly when Foster 
followed LaHood and his girlfriend to LaHood's 
home about 2 a.m. Aug. 15, 1996. One of Foster's 
passengers, Mauriceo Brown, jumped out, walked up 
to LaHood, demanded his wallet and car keys, then 
opened fire when LaHood, 25, couldn't produce 
them. LaHood, shot through the eye, died instantly.

Brown ran back to Foster's car and they sped 
away. Less than an hour later, Foster was pulled 
over for speeding and driving erratically. 
Foster, Brown, Dwayne Dillard and Julius Steen ­ 
all on probation and members of a street gang 
they called the Hoover 94 Crips ­ were arrested for LaHood's slaying.

Brown and Foster, tried together, were convicted 
of capital murder and sentenced to death. Foster 
was set to die 13 months after Brown, 31, was 
strapped to the same death chamber gurney in Huntsville for lethal injection.

Foster's execution would have made him the third 
Texas prisoner executed in as many days and the 
24th this year in the nation's most active 
capital punishment state. On Wednesday evening, 
John Joe Amador, 32, was put to death for the 
slaying of a San Antonio taxi driver 13 1/2 years ago.

Foster's scheduled execution piqued death penalty 
opponents who criticized his conviction and 
sentence under Texas' law of parties, which makes 
non-triggermen equally accountable for the crime. 
Foster would join a number of other condemned 
prisoners executed under the statute, including 
one put to death earlier this year.

"This is a new low for Texas," said Larry Cox, 
executive director of Amnesty International USA, 
a human rights organization that opposes the 
death penalty in all cases. "Allowing his life to 
be taken is a shocking perversion of the law."

Foster's lawyers were arguing in the courts that 
statements from Dillard and Steen, who were in 
Foster's car that night, clarify and provide new 
evidence that support Foster when he says he 
didn't know Brown was going to try to rob and shoot LaHood.

"I didn't kill anybody," Foster insisted from 
death row. "I screwed up. I went down the wrong 
path. I fault myself for being in this messed-up system."

Foster said he was some 80 feet away from the shooting.

"It's hard for you to anticipate how Brown is 
going to react," Foster said. "Texas is saying 
flat out: You should have known better.

"In life, we have hindsight. Texas is saying you 
better have foresight. They're saying you better be psychic."

Dillard now is serving life for killing a taxi 
driver across the street from the Alamo two weeks 
before LaHood's slaying. Steen testified at 
Brown's trial and received a life sentence in a plea bargain.

Brown testified at his trial the shooting was in 
self-defense, that he believed LaHood had a gun. 
Authorities, however, never found another weapon 
near LaHood's body. Foster did not testify.

"I thought what (Brown) said was good enough," he said from death row.

Mike Ramos, among the Bexar County prosecutors 
handling the case when it went to trial, said he 
found Foster's claims unbelievable and was 
irritated by a publicity effort to spare Foster.

"When you let somebody out of your car with a 
loaded handgun, what do you expect?" Ramos said. 
"If he didn't realize it could happen, I think he's a liar."

Last weekend a group of Foster supporters 
picketed outside an Austin church Gov. Rick Perry attends.

"These guys are rewriting history," Ramos said. 
"He was far from any kind of angel they're trying to portray."

Ramos said it was clear to him that Foster was 
"the puppet master pulling all the strings" during the robbery spree.

Nico LaHood, whose brother was killed, said 
Wednesday he was frustrated that people were 
willing to believe only Foster's story, which he 
called "ridiculous and not true."

"I don't know what dynamics are going on that 
allow us to make the person who is the wrongdoer 
to become the victim in this case," LaHood said. 
His brother, he said, was being "lost in the whole thing."

On Wednesday, Amador asked for forgiveness for 
himself and peace "for people seeking revenge 
toward me," then was put to death for the fatal 
shooting of San Antonio taxi driver Mohammad Reza Ayari.

Another execution, the first of five scheduled 
for September in Texas, is set for next week when 
South Carolina native Tony Roach faces injection 
Wednesday for the strangling of an Amarillo 
woman, Ronnie Dawn Hewitt, 37, during a burglary 
of her apartment nine years ago.

___

On the Net:

Texas Department of Criminal Justice execution 
schedule 
<http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/scheduledexecutions.htm>http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/scheduledexecutions.htm

Kenneth Foster <http://www.freekenneth.com>http://www.freekenneth.com