Conviction and execution of Steven Michael Woods, Jr.

Steven Michael Woods, Jr. (April 17, 1980 – September 13, 2011)^[1] was an American who was executed by lethal injection in the state of Texas.^[2] Woods was sentenced to the death penalty after a jury convicted him of the capital murders of drug dealer Ronald Whitehead, 21, and Bethena Brosz, 19, on May 2, 2001 in The Colony, Texas.^[3] Woods petitioned to media outlets for prisoner rights in February 2004.^[4]

He was incarcerated on the Texas state death row for men, located in the Allan B. Polunsky Unit (formerly the Terrell Unit) in West Livingston, Texas. In late 2006, Woods was part of a hunger strike in Polunsky, to oppose death row inmates' treatment.^[5]

Sentencing

Woods' co-defendant, Marcus Rhodes, pleaded guilty to shooting both victims to death with a firearm in the same criminal transaction and received a life sentence. During the trial it was revealed that authorities had recovered backpacks belonging to the slain pair along with shell casings and a bloodied knife in Rhodes' car. Guns used in the slayings were also recovered from the home of Rhodes' parents.^[6]

However, in Texas, the Law of Parties states that a person can be criminally responsible for the actions of another if he or she aids and abets, conspires with the principal or anticipates the crime. Although Rhodes pleaded guilty to the murders and Woods' did not, and there was no physical evidence tying Woods to the scene, Woods was executed for the crime.^[7] Witnesses testified at Woods' 2002 trial that he and Rhodes said that they lured Whitehead to an isolated road on the pretense of a drug deal and that Woods shot and killed him, because Whitehead knew about a killing two months earlier in California. Rhodes was later found guilty of the California murder and Woods was not. Prosecutors said Brosz was merely driving her boyfriend Whitehead to the drug deal. Brosz had been killed because she witnessed Whitehead's death, yelled and then attempted to flee.^[2]

Controversy

The fairness of Woods' case and punishment was criticized by Noam Chomsky^[8] and Amnesty International.^[9] Woods' criminal case was reported locally and internationally.^[10][11][12] Woods' final motion for a stay was denied on September 2, 2011.^[13]

Execution

In his last words, Woods stated:

Woods then took several deep breaths before all body movement stopped.^[2] A needle carrying the lethal drugs on his right arm pierced a green tattoo of a rose branch. The distinctive tattoo had identified him when he was arrested. Woods was pronounced dead on September 13, 2011 at 6:22pm.^[15] Woods' was the 10th execution carried out in Texas in 2011^[16] and the 474th since Texas resumed the death penalty in 1982.

References