Deacon: Woods ‘at peace’ and ‘right with God’ as execution date nears

By Mary Ann Wyand

Death row inmate David Leon Woods, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection early on May 4 at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Ind., told a priest and deacon that he is “at peace” and believes that he is “right with God.”

During pastoral visits at the prison in recent months, Woods talked with Holy Cross Father Thomas McNally of Notre Dame, Ind., from the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese, as well as Deacons Malcolm Lunsford and Mark Plaiss from the Gary Diocese.

Woods, who is 42, was sentenced to death for the 1984 slaying of Juan Placencia, a neighbor in Garrett, Ind.

On April 23, Indiana Parole Board members voted against recommending clemency for Woods after hearing testimony during a public hearing at the Indiana Government Center in Indianapolis.

As The Criterion went to press on May 1, Gov. Mitch Daniels had not commuted Woods’ capital sentence to life in prison without parole.

In a recent appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, attorneys for Woods had argued that he is mentally retarded and should not be executed.

The attorneys also had unsuccessfully petitioned the Indiana Supreme Court to consider evidence that Woods suffers from brain damage and dysfunction.

Deacon Plaiss, who ministers as the communications director for the Gary Diocese, said in a May 1 telephone interview that Woods “seemed to be at peace” when he visited him on death row in recent months.

Deacon Plaiss said Deacon Lunsford also ministers to prisoners incarcerated at the state prison and visited Woods, who is not Catholic, on a regular basis.

“It’s one thing to argue the merits of the death penalty in the abstract,” Deacon Plaiss said, “but when you get up on death row and you see the guys, you have a different perspective.

“I always keep in mind that the men who are on death row have committed heinous crimes and they have victims,” he said, “and those victims have families and they’re suffering as well. But when you talk to the men up on death row and you hear their story … you want to say, “These men are [made] in God’s image as well. It’s not right to kill them.’ ”

Deacon Plaiss said he believes that people who are

pro-life must oppose capital punishment.

“Those of us who are against the death penalty are not saying that these men should be released in society,” he said. “We’re just saying they should be behind bars for the rest of their natural life. … They’re not monsters. … They are human beings.

“It’s different when you talk to them,” Deacon Plaiss said. “It’s different when you see them face to face and look them in the eye [behind bars]. You can shake their hand. You can give them Communion. You can hold their hands when you pray with them.”

Woods has a spiritual director, Wanda Callahan, from the Church of the Brethren in Goshen, Ind. †