0
Nightingale

Kenneth Foster (getaway car driver) death sentence commuted

Recommended Posts

Quote

Texas Governor Rick Perry has announced that he is commuting Foster's death sentence to life in prison without parole. This is only the 2nd time that a Texas Governor has granted clemency since 1976. (The other case was Henry Lee Lucas in 1998.)" -DPF



What's the story on the Lucas case?!

edited: nevermind...googled.

Action expresses priority. - Mahatma Ghandi

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Yup, I got the email a little while ago. That's great news. What I think is good here is that it was not a knee-jerk pardon; he still has the life sentence which as a participant in this murder, he deserves.

Quote

Dear Douglas,
Perry spares inmate set to die today

Victory rally at the Governor's Mansion in Austin, --- 5:00 pm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you very much to the more than 5,000 people who wrote Governor Perry, the Board of Pardons and Paroles and every member of the Texas Legislature. Thank you to the many members of the Foster family, lawyers and activists around the world in the Save Kenneth Foster Campaign who have worked on this case and saved Kenneth's life. You have made a difference! You have made history! Extra thank you to the Campaign to End the Death Penalty in Austin who worked very hard for Kenneth.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By MICHAEL GRACZYK
Associated Press

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

Foster had been scheduled to die tonight.

"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 did not have to accept the highly unusual recommendation from the board whose members he appoints.

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 11 years ago 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."

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.


"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

0