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| Teresa Lewis |
A woman convicted of orchestrating a plot that led to the murders of her husband and stepson was executed in Virginia Thursday night, becoming the first woman executed in the state in almost a century.
The woman, Teresa Lewis, 41, died by lethal injection at a correctional facility in southeastern Virginia. With a crowd of death penalty opponents protesting outside, Ms. Lewis was pronounced dead at 9:13 p.m., the Associated Press reported, citing officials at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. She was the 12th woman executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
The case against Ms. Lewis, the first woman executed in the country since 2005, had drawn international attention. Many of her supporters questioned the fairness of her sentence — her co-conspirators, who fired the fatal shots, were spared capital punishment — and doubts were raised about her mental capacity. Psychologists involved in her case said she was borderline retarded. And her supporters argued that she had been manipulated by the two triggermen, who stood to gain hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings and life insurance payoffs.
Ms. Lewis received support from an unlikely cast. The novelist John Grisham published an op-ed piece calling for leniency, and the European Union sent a letter to Robert F. McDonnell, the governor of Virginia, asking him to commute Ms. Lewis’s sentence to life because of her mental capacities. The case was also cited by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a speech to Islamic clerics during a visit to New York this week.
Shortly after her execution, a lawyer for Ms. Lewis, Jim Rocap, called her death "a tragic loss."
“Tonight, the machinery of death in Virginia extinguished the beautiful, childlike and loving human spirit of Teresa Lewis," he said. "Teresa asked that I send her thanks and love to all of those who have supported her in this fight for her life. In her words, ’It’s just awesome.’ It is our hope that Teresa’s death will cause a re-examination of the badly broken system of justice that could allow something as wrong and unjust as this to happen.”
For her part, Ms. Lewis did not deny her involvement in the murders, which took place in October 2002. Prosecutors said Ms. Lewis hatched the murders with two men she had been sleeping with. They said she supplied them with money to buy the murder weapons and showered them with gifts.
On the night before Halloween, they said, Ms. Lewis left the doors of her home unlocked and got into bed as her conspirators entered the home. According to the authorities, Ms. Lewis stood by as the two men opened fire: first on her stepson, Charles J. Lewis, 25, a reservist about to be deployed, and then on her husband, Julian C. Lewis Jr., 51.
Ms. Lewis eventually confessed to the crimes and led the police to the gunmen. The judge presiding over the case, Charles J. Strauss of Pittsylvania Circuit Court, sentenced the two gunmen to life in prison. But Ms. Lewis, he concluded in 2003, had been the ringleader, showing a “depravity of mind” that justified the death penalty.
Lawyers for Ms. Lewis later revealed new evidence that pointed to one of the gunmen as the plot’s mastermind, including statements that he made in a letter and to a girlfriend. Ms. Lewis’s lawyers pleaded unsuccessfully for clemency. Her final, last-ditch appeal for a stay was turned down by the Supreme Court late Tuesday.
According to SkyNews, Ms. Lewis requested a last meal of fried chicken, a slice of German chocolate cake or apple pie, and Dr. Pepper soda. According to reports from the prison, her final words were a message for her stepdaughter.
“I just want Cathy to know that I love her and I’m very sorry,” she said.
Source: The New York Times, September 24, 2010
Teresa Lewis is executed for 2002 murders
Teresa Lewis died by injection tonight at 9:13 p.m. for the Oct. 30, 2002, slayings of her husband and stepson in Pittsylvania County.
Lewis, 41, was pronounced dead at the Greensville Correctional Center, where Virginia executions are performed.
Minutes earlier, given a chance to make a last statement, Lewis said: "I just want Kathy to know I love her and I'm very sorry." The murders left Lewis' stepdaughter, Kathy Clifton, the only surviving member of her family.
About 8:50 p.m., Lewis' lawyer, James E. Rocap III, and her spiritual adviser, the Rev. Julie Perry, the chaplain at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women, entered the witness room after visiting with Lewis.
At 8:55 p.m., after the death warrant was read to Lewis by Chief Warden George M. Hinkle, the door to the execution chamber opened and Lewis, wearing blue prison-issued pants and shirt, was led inside by corrections officers holding each arm.
Lewis appeared serious and fearful. She looked around the room as she was escorted to the gurney, where she lay down.
Her torso and limbs were quickly strapped down by 5 execution team members, and at 8:58 p.m. a blue curtain was drawn, blocking the view from the witness room as intravenous lines used to administer the drugs were inserted.
At 9:09 p.m., the curtain opened and Lewis was asked whether she had a last statement. She asked if "Kathy" was present, presumably referring to Kathy Clifton, the daughter and sister of the 2 murdered men.
Clifton had said earlier that she and her husband would attend the execution. Family witnesses view from a private room; corrections officials said they did not respond to Lewis' question.
The 1st of 3 chemicals then began flowing. Lewis' left foot had been moving as if she were tapping it, but the movement quickly stopped. She was pronounced dead at 9:13 p.m. and the curtains were redrawn, again blocking the view.
She became the 1st woman to be put to death in Virginia since Virginia Christian was electrocuted for murder in 1912, and the 1st in the United States since 2005.
Outside the prison, about a dozen people stood in protest. They were outnumbered by about 3 dozen members of the media, including reporters from Great Britain and Italy.
Lou Hart, who said he was a Quaker from Charlottesville, said it was his 1st time to stand outside the prison: "I’m not against every death penalty, but I am against most. This one bothered a lot of people because of the harshness of the penalty."
Longtime death penalty foe Annette Blankenship of Colonial Heights said she and Lewis had been corresponding for the past several years.
"I have 2 sons. And seeing this, I really feel bad-- when I saw her son, it just tore me up," she said. Lewis has a grown son and daughter.
He said she met with both of her children yesterday and wrote letters to both of them.
In a statement issued tonight, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said: "These were brutal, pitiless crimes committed for no other reason than greed. ... The just sentence of death has now been carried out. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the family and friends of [victims] Julian and C.J. Lewis."
The execution was just the 12th of a woman — compared with more than 1,200 for men — since the death penalty resumed in the United States in 1977. The rare event drew attention, and criticism, from across the nation and abroad.
Lewis was sentenced to death for her role in the murder-for-hire slayings of Julian Lewis, 51, and his son, C.J. Lewis, 25, who were shot to death in their beds in her failed plot to gain $250,000 in life insurance.
Julian Lewis, 51, and C.J. Lewis, 25, were hit with multiple shotgun blasts in their beds while Teresa Lewis stood by in the kitchen of the family trailer early that morning. As her husband was dying, she took his wallet, split the money inside it with the gunmen, and then waited 45 minutes to call for help.
Lewis was the secondary beneficiary of the policy: Both men had to die for her to collect the money.
She used sex and promises of money to entice Matthew Shallenberger, who was her lover, and Rodney Fuller to shoot the victims as she waited nearby in the kitchen of the family trailer.
The European Union's delegation to the U.S., concerned about Lewis' mental capacity, sent a letter this month to Gov. Bob McDonnell asking that he commute the sentence to life. Iranian officials, stung by criticism over a woman convicted of adultery there and sentenced to death by stoning, blasted the West this week for hypocrisy.
The governor's office had no comment on either development.
Those asking that her life be spared included Amnesty International, best-selling author John Grisham, religious and anti-death-penalty groups, and thousands of people who signed petitions asking McDonnell to commute the death sentence.
Gov. Bob McDonnell twice turned down clemency pleas, most recently on Monday. He said that after a careful review he found no compelling reason to set aside the sentence and noted that no professional evaluation of Lewis ever found she met the medical or legal definition of mental retardation.
Her lawyers contended that her low IQ, a personality disorder and addiction to pain medication made it impossible for her to have been the mastermind of the crime.
Lewis' lawyers and supporters also argued that she should have received the same sentence as the shooters. They said that Lewis, the mother of 2 who last year became a grandmother, had no prior record of violence and had been an exemplary inmate since her conviction.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down her appeal and request for a stay of execution.
Lewis spent part of her last day visiting with family, her spiritual adviser and her lawyers, Traylor said.
In an interview Monday, Lewis said she hoped to have a contact visit with her son and daughter on her last day. She also has a 14-month-old grandson by her daughter.
Lewis becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Virginia and the 108th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982. Only Texas has put more inmates to death (463) in the USA since the death penalty was re-legalized by the US Supreme Court decision of Gregg v Georgia on July 2, 1976.
Lewis becomes the 39th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1227th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.
Sources: Richmond Times-Dispatch & Rick Halperin, September 24, 2010
Teresa Lewis' execution and the reaction to women on death row
Powell murdered 1 woman, raped another and was executed in the electric chair in March. Walker killed 2 men in premeditated murders. He died by injection in May. Both were executed in Virginia.
Virginia death row inmate Teresa Lewis did not commit any murders with her own hands. She has not yet died. But she has appeared 29 times on the Post's website in the last 60 days. She has been a Google trending topic on the web.
Best-selling author John Grisham has called her pending execution unjust. The European Union asked the Virginia governor to commute her sentence to life. Bianca Jagger asked for clemency. Even Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad weighed in on Lewis, accusing the western media of having a double standard in reporting Lewis' execution, compared to the coverage of a woman in Iran who was sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery.
Walker, Powell and Lewis all were convicted of murder. All 3 were sentenced to die in Virginia. Why then has there been such a vast difference in response to their executions?
Lewis, 41, was condemned to death for plotting the 2002 killings of her husband Julian Lewis and his son, Charles "C.J." Lewis, to collect insurance money. She will die by lethal injection at 9 EST tonight. The 2 men she conspired with to commit the killings were sentenced to life imprisonment.
Lewis' case has garnered attention in part because she did not pull the triggers that killed the 2 men and because her low IQ misses the mark by 2 points that would exempt her from death. Anyone with less than a 70 IQ cannot be executed; Lewis has an IQ of 72. But above all, Lewis has drawn attention because she is a woman, and women on death row are a rarity.
Out of 3,261 people on death row in the United States, only 61 are women. Since 1976, the year the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S., there have been 1,226 executions -- only 11 have been of women. Lewis will be the 1st women executed in Virginia this century.
It is not just that women commit fewer murders. Fewer receive the death penalty and even fewer are actually executed. According to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, women account for 10 percent of murder arrests, but only 1 % of executions.
Richard Dieter, of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that though women are more rarely given the death penalty, their gender can be a detriment in their cases. "When their crime seems to cross a certain line of expectation for women, they are treated more harshly," he said in a phone interview. He thinks that in order to justify a women's execution, prosecutors and judges must characterize the killer as "beyond belief and beyond the pale."
"You see these epitaphs, 'monster...' 'head of the serpent..." he said.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) declined to stay Lewis' execution. He said he did not take her gender into consideration.
Source: Washington Post, September 24, 2010 - Picture: Women executed in the U.S. (Death Penalty Information Center)
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