Paul Woodward of Mississippi to die on Wed, 19th of May

[Lori]

Here is a summary of the case. All involved need plenty of prayers. Predator cases like this just boggle the delicate psychological fabric of all involved.

MISSISSIPPI:

The Mississippi Supreme Court refused Thursday to grant death row inmate
Paul Everette Woodward a new sentencing in a capital murder case that has
kicked around the courts for 10 years.

Woodward, now 49, was convicted on April 29, 1987, for capital murder and
sentenced to death in the killing of Rhonda Crane.

Crane was a volunteer worker at the Jackson County Youth Court.

She was driving from Escatawpa July 23, 1986, to join her parents at
Flint Creek Water Park in Wiggins for a family camping trip when
Woodward used his log truck to force Crane to stop her car south of New
Augusta, prosecutors said.

Woodward kidnapped the woman and then forced her to have sex with him
before shooting her, prosecutors said.

Crane's father, Robert Holloman of Escatawpa, was among the searchers who
found her body the next day in a wooded area.

Woodward also got 2 consecutive 30-year terms for kidnapping and sexual
battery.

The state high court upheld Woodward's conviction in October 1988.
The court turned around in October 1993 and granted him a new sentencing
hearing because of a faulty jury instruction under what is known as the
"Clemons rule."

In 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Mississippi death penalty
case against Chandler Clemons that describing a crime to juries as
"especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" without further definition was
unconstitutionally vague. The decision dealt only with the sentencing
phase of a capital murder trial, not convictions.

A Perry County jury in September 1995 handed down another death
sentence to Woodward, who again appealed.

Presiding Justice Lenore Prather, writing for the unanimous court, said
Thursday that nothing Woodward tried to argue on appeal had any merit.

Woodward again attacked the jury instruction on thecruel nature of the
case against him. But Prather said the trial judge properly instructed
the jury in line with the Clemons' decision.

[josephw]

I PRAYED THE CHAPLET FOR MR. Woodward

JESUS I TRUST IN YOU
JOSEPHW