Ex parte David Wood

Applicant David Wood filed a subsequent application claiming that he was exempt from the death penalty due to intellectual disability, and that due process required that he be given tools and a hearing to more fully establish his intellectual-disability claim. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals remanded the case for the habeas court to consider these claims. Upon receiving the case back from the habeas court, the Court considered Applicant’s allegations and denied relief upon the habeas court’s findings and its own review.3After the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Moore v. Texas, 137 S. Ct. 1039 (2017), Applicant filed a suggestion that the Court of Criminal Appeals reconsider his application on its own initiative. Having reviewed the record in this case in light of Moore and the subsequent decision in Ex parte Moore, 548 S.W.3d 552 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018), the Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that no further record development or fact findings were needed and that Applicant was not entitled to relief. "The habeas court’s findings of fact were extensive. Some of those findings, 280 through 322, discussed the Briseno factors and possible alternate causes of any adaptive deficits and are no longer viable after the Moore cases. Nevertheless, the habeas court’s denial of relief remains amply supported by findings 1 through 279." View "Ex parte David Wood" on Justia Law