Kenneth Foster does express regret for Michael LaHood's death, expresses appropriate bereavement for any part he had in the death of Mr. LaHood, reaches out to the LaHood family expressing his sorrow, and is willing to offer atonement for any part he has had in the tragedy, from Kenneth's unique perspective of having served 11 years under a unjust death sentence for the tragic crime. This, any reasonable person or entity(?) can easily discern from Kenneth Foster's own words during the KXAN interview.*
The Case
The fatal flaw in this case was committed by the State and by the State's Prosecuting Attorneys, by their own misunderstanding and misapplication of the Law of Parties case against Mr. Foster.The Law of Parties case against Mr. Foster was flawed in the original joint trial of Foster and Brown because these two sets of events are legally distinct from each other, by the fact that the State divided the two receiving lesser sentences into other trials, then used the information and testimony from Mr. Steen to attempt to establish a contiguous history of events to convince a jury that Kenneth Foster was guilty under the Law of Parties statute. For clarification, the Prosecution established the Law of Parties case against Mr. Foster, by juxtaposing circumstances occurring before the encounter with Mr. LaHood with the legally unrelated circumstances of Mr. LaHood's tragic death, which act occurred after agreement among the four had been reached that no more robberies were to be planned or carried out, at Mr. Foster's desire expressed to Mr. Dillard, saying that he "didn't feel right" about what was going on; facts that were not heard in the original trial due to restrictions over access to Mr. Steen and ineptness by Mr. Foster's inexperienced lawyer, and refusal to hear this testimony of both Mr. Steen and Mr. Dillard in subsequent attempts at appeal. Obviously, they were successful at convincing the jury using this manipulated and truncated evidence, but the Law of Parties statute should never have been invoked under the circumstances which so jeopardized the constitutional and civil rights of Mr. Foster. The continuity between the two events never existed, and was rendered even more tenuous by the fact that all parties were not treated equally under the Law. DeWayne Dillard and Julius Steen were not tried under the Law of Parties statute, although they could easily have been so, as easily as Kenneth Foster was tried and convicted, and their testimonies should not have been allowed under the circumstances in the joint Brown/Foster cases. The case ethics smacks of a vendetta instigated against Mr. Foster by an overzealous State of Texas.
Kenneth Foster was tried in the same trial with the convicted killer of Michael LaHood, known as Mauriceo Brown who was executed last year, except for the distinction that Kenneth was tried under the Law of Parties statute while Mr. Brown was tried for the actual shooting, a distinction I'm not sure the Jurors were completely aware of. Mauriceo Brown acted alone out of his own free will in pulling the trigger, by Mr. Brown's own testimony and by clarifying evidence offered by the other two parties in later appeals, by both DeWayne Dillard and Julius Steen. DeWayne Dillard, whose gun was used by Mr. Brown in the killing, and Julius Steen were tried separately for the crimes committed earlier that night in M. Steen's case, and for other crimes at other times and circumstances in Mr. Dillard's case, and were given lesser sentences for their crimes than Mr. Foster received. Mr. Dillard is serving a life sentence for his involvement in two murders not related to this case, and Mr. Steen received a reduced sentence of 35 years through a plea bargain for Aggravated Robbery for the two earlier robberies that night, because he had turned State's Evidence in the State vs. Brown/Foster trial, and it was Mr. Steen's truncated State's Evidence which convinced the jury that was heard in the original trial. Given that the Aggravated Robbery offense Steen was tried for was for the two robberies committed by Mr. Foster's passengers in the rented car before the impromptu killing occurred, a separate fact admitted to by the State in negotiating a plea bargain with Mr. Steen, and also that Kenneth had stopped his passengers from committing any more spree robberies, hours before the shooting occurred, then Kenneth Foster should not have had any evidence brought forth from the other case(s) for the Prosecution to argue the Law of Parties case against himself, or the evidence should have been deemed inadmissible by the Judge in the case of Mr. Foster's Law of Parties.
Reasonable Doubt, a protection that the State understands and is charged with upholding, would indicate that Kenneth Foster's sentence be commuted, and that he be given a new trial if necessary.
Disclaimer:
I am a legal person. As such, I am expressing my sole unsolicited opinion the way that I see it. I am a lifelong Texas citizen from Austin, Texas. I am not connected with or in any way profiting from involving myself in this discussion. I am not a lawyer. I know Mr. Foster only through his writings and his words in the media. I am late to any knowledge of Mr. Foster's case, having stumbled upon my involvement only a few weeks ago. Before three weeks ago I'd never heard of Kenneth's case, and I regret that the time has been so short for my contribution here.
I express my full sympathy to the LaHood family over Michael LaHood's tragic death, and I abhor any killing of one person by another by any means for any reason except self-defense or in the defense of others, and I realize that sometimes it happens for good reasons (i.e. to defend against the taking of a life or lives in jeopardy of the use of eadly force by another). In my humble opinion, the killing of a person of Kenneth Foster's intellectual and moral stature will not help the LaHood family members achieve closure for their loss of Michael LaHood.
I am not a lawyer. I'm sure that I have not parsed this well, nor do I claim to have full knowledge of the particulars of the case, and I have strong feelings for what is right. See Kenneth's Case on the FreeKenneth site for more details on the case. My only desire is that my contributions may help others to understand this case and my reward would be in making a difference to Kenneth Foster and his family, the LaHoods, and to the world in general. My knowledge of the case comes from brief browsing on the Internet and on the FreeKenneth site and talking with people both within the community of his supporters and without.
