The US state of Virginia is today due to carry out its first execution of a woman in nearly a century amid appeals from the European Union and repercussions that reached as far away as Iran.
Teresa Lewis, 41, is scheduled to die by injection at Greensville Correctional Centre in Jarratt for the hired killings of her husband and stepson in October 2002.
To procure the hit men, prosecutors said, she used sex, cash and a promised cut of the insurance benefits the killings would bring her.
The US Supreme Court and Governor Bob McDonnell have declined to intervene, and all her legal appeals have been exhausted, Lewis's attorney said.
In a state with the second busiest death chamber in the US, the case has stirred an unusual amount of attention because of her gender, claims she lacked the intelligence to mastermind the killings and the post-conviction emergence of defence evidence that one of the killers manipulated her.
Lewis's supporters say she is a changed woman, and point to testimonials from former prison chaplains and inmates that Lewis comforted and inspired other inmates with her faith and the hymns and country gospel tunes she sang at Fluvanna Correctional Centre for Women.
In a letter this month to Mr McDonnell, the European Union asked the governor to commute her sentence to life, citing Lewis's mental capacity. She has admitted her role in the killings, but her lawyers have said testing shows she has a low IQ bordering mental disability.
The European Union's ambassador to the US wrote that the EU "considers that the execution of people with mental disorders of all types is contrary to minimum standards of human rights".
Earlier this week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Western media of having a double standard in reporting on the Lewis execution.
He compared coverage of the Lewis case to the "heavy propaganda" campaign against the case of an Iranian woman who had been sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery.
"Meanwhile, nobody objects to the case of an American woman who is going to be executed," he was quoted as saying during a speech on Monday to Islamic clerics and other figures in New York.
Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Centre agreed that the death penalty is a human rights issue, but said the Iranian leader is "the wrong messenger".
"The US is, of course, interested in human rights abuses," he said.
Mr McDonnell said he had thoroughly reviewed court records and medical and psychological reports and found no compelling reason to grant clemency to Lewis.
Lewis met Rodney Fuller and Matthew Shallenberger in a Wal-Mart store in Pittsylvania County and traded sex and money for weapons for the hired killing of her husband, Julian Clifton Lewis Jr. His son, Julian Lewis, entered the US Army Reserve and had a $250,000 (€187,414) life insurance policy, naming his father as beneficiary.
Both men would have to die for Lewis to collect.
On the night before Halloween in 2002, Shallenberger and Fuller came in and shot both men several times with shotguns.
Lewis's attorneys note that Shallenberger later claimed he was the mastermind and duped Lewis to get some of the insurance money. Shallenberger committed suicide in prison in 2006. He and Fuller were sentenced to life for the killings.
Lewis's execution would be the first of a woman in Virginia since 1912. Texas held the most recent US execution of a woman in 2005.
Out of more than 1,200 people put to death since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, only 11 have been women.
Women should get their rights but if they use their rights for doing wrong things then this is not right.
by Patricia Scott 9 years ago
Where are you on capital punishment?Karla Faye Tucker was put to death for a heinous murder Her story is told in a poignant, reflective film in which her life changes dramatically after imprisonment.And yet she was not spared. At her execution, the sheriff who was involved in the case said...
by qwark 14 years ago
For the sake of engendering passionate, spirited responses, should the execution of murderers be televised?
by Kenna McHugh 7 years ago
How did you get out of jury duty?
by Keith James Kennedy 12 years ago
You're drafted to fight for your country, but you can be excused for $1000. What do you do?
by Shari 14 years ago
Sheridan's unit gave up 427 points this season -- the second-most in franchise history. Five times, the Giants allowed their opponent to score 40 or more points. Add to that the the fact that Sheridan clashed with his players during the season, namely Pro Bowl defensive end Osi Umenyiora. Let the...
by Flightkeeper 13 years ago
Teresa Lewis is scheduled to die by injection tonight at 9PM at the Greensville Correctional Center. She was guilty of hiring two people to murder her husband and son-in-law, while they slept, for the insurance money. The two killers got life, she got the death sentence. There...
Copyright © 2024 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2024 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |