Posted on 08/31/2007 7:52:07 AM PDT by Santa Fe_Conservative
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Gov. Rick Perry, in a rare and uncharacteristic move Thursday, spared the life of condemned prisoner Kenneth Foster, hours before he was to be executed for his role in a San Antonio robbery-shooting.
The halt to Thursday's execution marked only the second time since Texas resumed carrying out executions in 1982 that the parole board voted to stop an execution this close to punishment time. And in that case, in 2004, Perry rejected the board's recommendation and the prisoner was executed.
But this time, Perry agreed with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles' equally unusual recommendation that Foster be saved from lethal injection.
"I was surprised, but I had faith he was going to do the right thing," Foster, 30, said as he was being taken from the Huntsville Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, where executions are carried out, for a return trip to the Polunsky Unit near Livingston, where death row inmates are housed.
(Excerpt) Read more at statesman.com ...
Gov. Rick Perry, in a rare and uncharacteristic move Thursday, spared the life of condemned prisoner Kenneth Foster, hours before he was to be executed for his role in a San Antonio robbery-shooting.The halt to Thursday's execution marked only the second time since Texas resumed carrying out executions in 1982 that the parole board voted to stop an execution this close to punishment time. And in that case, in 2004, Perry rejected the board's recommendation and the prisoner was executed.
But this time, Perry agreed with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles' equally unusual recommendation...
So the governor can ONLY act when the parole board gives him opportunity, and they've only done so one other time.
"Rare" indeed. Actually it comes down to 50% of the time the governor commuted a sentence.
He was the getaway car driver. Did he turn his friend in? Or did he shield him from law enforcement? Did he protect him at trial?
Is this the poet and rapper wannabe on his way to stardom?
neither, he was tried at the same time, in the same courtroom as the triggerman....he did not deserve the death penalty, but this case serves as a good lesson to my boys, be careful who you hang out or associate with ‘cuz in the end you will be found just as guilty merely by association.......
As long as all three of these guys never breath freedom again, I can live with this decision.
This is opinion, not news. Does the author know the Governor that well to determine what is characteristic of him?
Can’t he issue a 30 day stay of execution without the Board’s approval?
To be fair, it is uncharacteristic. Our governors don’t commute death sentences all that often.
A little more info:
Brown ran back to Foster’s car and they drove off. Less than an hour later, Foster was pulled over for speeding and driving erratically. Foster, Brown and two others in the car, Dwayne Dillard and Julius Steen — all on probation and members of a street gang — were arrested for LaHood’s slaying.
Brown and Foster wound up on death row. Dillard is serving life for killing a taxi driver across the street from the Alamo two weeks before LaHood’s slaying. Steen took a life sentence in a plea bargain.
Can’t he issue a 30 day stay of execution without the Board’s approval?
Several juries - and I - disagree with you. High on booze and drugs, driving around with his buds robbing people, and wonders in amazement how he is supposed to know how someone might get killed as a result. BOVINE FECES. We know from the article that they committed at least four other robberies earlier and I'm willing to bet that at least one of those was armed robbery. I don't have the benefit of trial transcripts but unless there was corroborated testimony that Foster was absolutely ignorant of the fact that Brown was robbed, then he is just as guilty under the law and deserves the same fate as the trigger man. PERIOD.
then why did the man standing next to the triggerman, not 80 feet away like this guy, get life in prison and not death......
Because he made a deal with the prosecutors and in exchange for his testimony got a more lenient sentence. Plea bargains happen all the time and should not automatically benefit their partners-in-crime. “The first to talk gets to walk,” so to speak. Foster chose not to and instead said "not guilty." Let’s not lose perspective here. And quite frankly, none of the four are worth their pinkie's weight in carbon credits.
Also, heard on KTSA yesterday that the murdered man's brother was on his way to witness the execution and found out about this on the radio. Perry could have at least tried to contact the family, what a jerk.
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