"McDonnell again declines to stop woman's execution," is the Washington Post report written by Anita Kumar.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) declined Tuesday morning to reconsider the clemency petition for a 41-year-old woman set to be executed Thursday, despite a last-minute plea by her attorneys Monday.
In a letter sent to Teresa Lewis's attorney James Rocap, McDonnell counselor Jasen Eige said the governor would not deviate from his position, which he made in accordance with his policy of making execution decisions five days in advance.
The case is receiving international attention. "Iran claims double standard in death penalty cases," is the title of an AP report, via Google News.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has criticized Western media for having a double standard in reporting on the case of an American woman facing the death penalty, a news agency reported Tuesday.
Ahmadinejad accused the West of launching a "heavy propaganda" campaign against the case of an Iranian woman who had been sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery but failing to react with outrage over the imminent execution of Teresa Lewis in Virginia, according to state-run IRNA. Iran
Lewis is a Virginia woman due to be put to death by injection on Thursday for using sex and money to persuade two men to kill her husband and her stepson to collect on life insurance policies. She would be the first woman executed in Virginia in nearly a century, and the first U.S. execution of a woman in five years.
Ahmadinejad noted that "millions of Internet pages" have been devoted to Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, whose stoning sentence was suspended in July and her case put under review.
And:
Stoning was widely imposed in the years after the 1979 Islamic revolution, and even though Iran's judiciary still regularly hands down such sentences, they are often converted to other punishments.
The last known stoning was carried out in 2007, although the government rarely confirms that such punishments have been meted out.
Lucile Malandain reports, "Virginia to execute first woman in almost 100 years," for AFP. It's via Google News.
Barring a last-minute reprieve from the US Supreme Court, 41-year-old Teresa Lewis will on Thursday become the first woman to be executed by the state of Virginia in almost 100 years.
Abolitionists paint Lewis as a classic example of why capital punishment is flawed, saying the mother and grandmother has diminished mental faculties and was taken advantage of by smarter accomplices.
But with an IQ hovering at 70 or above, Lewis is considered fit for trial in Virginia and she pleaded guilty to hiring two men to murder her husband and stepson to pocket their 350,000-dollar life insurance policy.
Unless the Supreme Court intervenes, she will die by lethal injection on Thursday, the first woman to be put to death in Virginia since Virginia Christian, a black 17-year-old who died in the electric chair in 1912.The Guardian reports, "Virginia set to execute first woman in nearly a century." It's written by Chris McGreal in Washington.
Teresa Lewis Teresa Lewis's last hope is an appeal to the US supreme court.
The state of Virginia this week plans to carry out its first execution of a woman in nearly a century, despite claims that Teresa Lewis has severe learning difficulties.
Lewis's last hope is an appeal to the US supreme court after Robert McDonnell, the state governor, said he will not spare the life of the 41-year-old who was convicted of arranging for two men to murder her husband and stepson. She is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday.
The men who carried out the killings – one of whom was Lewis's lover – received life sentences.
And:
There are 53 women on death row in the US. They include Linda Carty, who is from the Caribbean island of St Kitts and who holds a British passport but spent most of her adult life in the US. Carty was convicted, along with three co-defendants, of murder in Texas after kidnapping a 25-year-old woman and her three-day-old baby.
The woman was tied up with duct tape and a bag sealed over her head before she was forced in to the boot of a car where she died of suffocation.
Carty's co-defendants testified against her and were spared the death penalty. She says she was framed by them because she was an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration. Carty is facing execution after the US supreme court refused to hear an appeal.
Jack Payden-Travers posts, "Thoughts on the execution of a pen-pal," at the WMRA Blog.
Before leaving for our family week at the beach, I sent a goodbye card to a friend. She’s about to die. As any of us who have lost loved ones to death know, it is not easy to say goodbye. This case was especially difficult, for my friend isn’t ill. As far as I know she is in reasonably good health and turned 41 this past April. But she is set to die on September 23rd.
On that night Teresa Lewis will be strapped to a gurney and lethally injected at the death chamber inside the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. I know she is guilty of participating in the murders of both her husband, Julian, and her stepson, C.J., who was home on military leave prior to his Army reserve unit being sent to Iraq. She pled guilty in front of Judge Strauss. But what I don’t understand is how the two triggermen received life-without-parole sentences while the judge condemned Teresa to death. He referred to her “as the head of the serpent.”
Earlier coverage of her case begins here; more on Linda Carty, here.
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