A group of nearly 50 evangelical leaders are urging the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott to halt the upcoming execution of death row inmate Jeffery Wood.

In a letter signed by 49 evangelicals from Texas and around the country, the Christian leaders said officials have a "moral obligation" to stop the execution, which is scheduled for Aug. 24.

Evangelicals have historically been divided on the death penalty. The National Association of Evangelicals has stood in favor of the death penalty since the 1970s, though it updated its stance in 2015 to acknowledge that the Christian ethic could also undergird opposition to capital punishment.

"Many of us in the evangelical Protestant community are coming to where the Catholics have been for a while: pro-life in terms of whole life, all vulnerable life, whether in the womb or on death row," one of the letters signatories, Joel Hunter, told The Marshall Project, a news outlet focused on criminal justice.

Source

• Crux
• The Huffington Post
• Image: savejeffwood.com

Scott Panetti was due to be executed just hours before the stay.

"The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops today expressed appreciation to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for granting a stay of execution for death row inmate Scott Panetti", read a bishops' statement.

"The Texas Bishops have long taught about the immorality of the death penalty and were particularly vocal seeking mercy for Panetti, who has been diagnosed by several doctors as suffering from severe mental illness."

The stay, the bishops said, "means Panetti's attorneys will have another opportunity to argue that the death penalty in his case would violate the constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

"The Texas Catholic Conference will continue to advocate for the commutation of Panetti's sentence into institutionalization."

Panetti was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday evening, but the fifth circuit appeals court said it needed time "to fully consider the late arriving and complex legal questions at issue in this matter."

In September 1992, Panetti killed his in-laws Joe and Amanda Alvarado in their home in front of his estranged wife and their 3-year-old daughter. He was heavily armed and dressed in camouflage.

He had been hospitalized for mental illness more than a dozen times before the murders, and is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.

Sources:

• CNA
• Image: The Guardian