Texas is set to carry out its ninth execution of 2014, tonight in Huntsville. It would be the state's 517th post-Furman executions since 1982. There have been 29 executions in American death penalty states this year; a total of 1,388 post-Furman executions since 1977.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegam reports, "Arlington woman’s execution set for Wednesday," by Mitch Mitchell.
An Arlington woman who abused and starved the 9-year-old son of her live-in girlfriend is set to be executed Wednesday, the first Tarrant County woman to be put to death since executions resumed in Texas in 1982.
Lisa Ann Coleman, 38, was convicted in 2006 in the death of Davontae Williams, one of three children of Marcella Williams.
And:
Initially, both Coleman and Williams were charged with capital murder.
Coleman’s appellate attorney, John Stickels, filed a clemency application on Aug. 27, arguing that Coleman is not guilty of capital murder and requesting that Gov. Rick Perry commute her sentence to life in prison. The board voted unanimously on Monday not to recommend commutation or a reprieve of Coleman’s sentence.
The clemency petition states that Coleman may be guilty of causing Devontae’s death but not guilty of capital murder.
Stickels said Coleman was punished with death because she had the temerity to take her case to a jury. Prosecutors never offered Coleman a plea bargain as they later did Williams, Stickels said.
"Texas set to execute Lisa Coleman for gruesome murder of child," is by Tom Dart for the Guardian.
Coleman will be the third American woman given a lethal injection since September 2010, when Virginia caused an outcry by putting Teresa Lewis to death for hiring hitmen to kill her husband and stepson for an insurance payout. Lewis was only narrowly above the intellectual disability threshold, while the two gunmen were given life sentences. Since then, 159 men have been executed.
Last year, Texas executed Kimberly McCarthy, who had the dubious distinction of being the 500th prisoner put to death by the Lone Star state since it resumed the practice in 1982. Suzanne Basso followed last February, also at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, 70 miles north of Houston.
Only 10.5% of homicides from 1980-2008 were committed by women, according to US Department of Justice statistics. Less than 3% of current Texas death row inmates are female: eight out of 275 people.
Houston's KPFT-FM will host Execution Watch on the web and its HD radio broadcast signal beginning at 6:00 p.m. (CDT), this evening.
Earlier coverage of Lisa Coleman's case begins at the link. Related posts are in the female category index.
Comments