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Steven Michael Woods, Jr. (April 17, 1980 - September 13, 2011)〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Offender information - Woods, Jr, Stephen Michael )〕 was an American who was executed by lethal injection in the state of Texas. 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. Woods petitioned to media outlets for prisoner rights in February 2004. In late 2006, Woods was part of a hunger strike in the Polunsky unit in West Livingston, Texas, to oppose death row inmates' treatment. Woods' co-defendant, Marcus Rhodes, pled 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. 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 pled 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.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Texas Penal Code - Section 7.02. Criminal Responsibility For Conduct Of Another )〕 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.〔 ==Fairness of Sentencing/Conviction Dispute== The fairness of Woods' case and punishment was criticized by Noam Chomsky〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Steven Woods: Wrongfully Convicted & Sentenced to Death )〕 and Amnesty International.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Stop the Execution of Steven Woods in Texas )〕 Woods' criminal case was reported locally and internationally. Woods' final motion for a stay was denied on September 2, 2011. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Conviction and execution of Steven Michael Woods, Jr.」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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