A San Antonio jury sentenced Kenneth Foster Jr. to death in 1997 for driving his friends from the scene of a deadly shooting after what prosecutors said was a botched robbery.

The 20-year-old was convicted under the conspiracy provision of Texas' "law of parties," a legal premise that alleged that Foster was just as responsible for Michael LaHood's death as the man who shot him.

Under the controversial law, Foster was accused of being a co-conspirator in a robbery plot that he should have known was likely to result in LaHood's death.

Bexar County prosecutors claimed that LaHood was the final target in a string of armed robberies that Foster and his three cohorts set out to commit the evening of Aug. 14, 1996. LaHood's girlfriend, Mary Patrick, testified that the foursome followed them in their car to LaHood's home and engaged her in a brief conversation before Foster's co-defendant, Mauriceo Brown, ambushed LaHood in his driveway.

Patrick testified that Brown shot LaHood, the son of a prominent San Antonio attorney, in the head from less than six inches away when he refused to give up his wallet. During the brief altercation, Foster kept the car in gear, a fact that prosecutors said underscored their belief that Foster knew a robbery was in progress.

During the penalty phase, jurors found that two aggravating factors applied to Foster: that he should have been able to anticipate LaHood's death, and that he was a future danger to society. They also found that none of the evidence presented by his lawyers in the penalty phase mitigated his culpability, rendering him eligible for the death penalty.

After the penalty phase, one of the 12 panelists remarked in the press that Foster, a churchgoing college student who was working toward a degree in sociology, had "all the chances in the world" to steer clear of the violent path he went down the night of Aug. 14, 1996.

But Foster, now 30, claims the jury was never shown that he was unable to anticipate that his co-defendant, Mauriceo Brown, was going to kill LaHood, because the two had never agreed to rob him.

Also, post-conviction attorneys trying to win Foster's freedom from a death sentence claim the jury might have voted differently had they heard about his troubled upbringing at the hands of two drug addicts who spent most of their son's childhood in custody.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has refused to grant Foster a hearing to consider the merit of his claims, leaving clemency from Gov. Rick Perry his only chance for a reprieve before his Aug. 30 execution date.

Growing up in a drug house

Foster was born Oct. 22, 1976, to a couple who had met one year before at a drug treatment center in Austin, Texas.

Drug abuse remained a focal point of the Fosters' daily existence after their son's birth, according to relatives who spoke to Foster's lawyers for their application to commute his sentence.

Foster's mother, Patsy Pullin, routinely committed theft, burglary and prostitution to maintain her habit. His father, Kenneth Foster Sr., also resorted to crime to support his addiction, using his infant son's baby carriage to conceal stolen goods.

The Fosters' exploits landed them in and out of jail throughout their son's childhood. In between their jail stints, the young Foster frequently saw his parents using heroin, cocaine and crack. On at least one occasion, he watched his mother performing a sexual act on a man for money.

Foster's grandparents raised him from the time he was 8 years old.

During this time, Kenneth's older half-brother, Chris Pullin, became his caregiver and also turned to theft to support the family. As the boys grew older, Pullin told Foster's lawyers, his mother came to expect the boys to pickpocket and steal "whatever cost the highest" — from briskets and hams to cartons of cigarettes. Pullin said his mother often sold their clothing for drug money, and the boys once sold their dog to help their mother when she was sick.

When his parents were not around, Foster and his brother witnessed violence and drug use in their home from a revolving cast of family friends and relatives, including a male prostitute uncle who sold drugs from the home.

Through his older brother and his friends, the young Foster was introduced to alcohol when he was 6. By the time he was 8, he was smoking marijuana. By age 11, he had been sexually abused by three older female cousins, according to relatives.