Thread: US Execution

US executes first woman in five years
AP
Last updated 15:22 24/09/2010

The first woman executed in the United States in five years was put to death in Virginia for arranging the killings of her husband and a stepson over a $US250,000 ($NZ342,600) insurance payment.

Teresa Lewis, 41, died by injection at 9.13pm Thursday, authorities said. She became the first woman executed in Virginia in nearly a century. Supporters and relatives of the victims watched her execution at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt.

Lewis enticed two men through sex, cash and a promised cut in an insurance policy to shoot her husband, Julian Clifton Lewis Jr., and his son, Charles, as they were sleeping in the couple's mobile home in October 2002. Both triggermen were sentenced to life in prison and one committed suicide in 2006.

Lewis appeared tearful, her jaw clenched, as she was escorted into the death chamber. She glanced tensely around at the 14 assembled corrections officials before being bound to a gurney with heavy leather straps.

In the moments before her execution, Lewis asked if her husband's daughter was there.

Kathy Clifton, Lewis' stepdaughter, was in an adjacent witness room blocked from the inmate's view by a two-way mirror.

``I want Kathy to know that I love her and I'm very sorry,'' Lewis said.

Then, as the drugs flowed into her body, her feet bobbed but she otherwise remained motionless. A guard lightly tapped on her shoulder reassuringly as she slipped into death.

More than 7,300 appeals to stop the execution - the first of a woman in Virginia since 1912 - had been made to the governor in a state second only to Texas in the number of people it executes.

Texas held the most recent US execution of a woman in 2005. Out of more than 1200 people put to death since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, only 11 have been women.

The 41-year-old woman, who defence attorneys said was borderline mentally disabled, had inspired other inmates by singing Christian hymns in prison. Her fate also had drawn appeals from the European Union, an indignant rebuke from Iran and the disgust of thousands of people.

The Lewis execution 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 triggermen manipulated her.

Lewis' supporters also said she was a changed woman. They pointed 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 the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women where she was long held.

Hours before her execution, Lewis met with family, her spiritual adviser and supporters at the Greensville Correctional Centre.

Her spiritual adviser, the Reverend Julie Perry, stood sobbing as she later witnessed the execution, clutching a religious book.

Throughout her life, a faith in God had been a seeming constant for Lewis - whether it was the prayer with her husband or her ministry behind bars.

But by her own admission, Lewis' life has been marked by outrageous bouts of sex and betrayal even as she hewed to the trappings of Christianity.

``I was doing drugs, stealing, lying and having several affairs during my marriages,'' Lewis wrote in a statement that was read at a prison religious service in August. ``I went to church every Sunday, Friday and revivals but guess what? I didn't open my Bible at home, only when I was at church.''

Her father said she ran off to get married, then later abandoned her children and ran off with her sister's husband. Then she had an affair with her sister's fiance while at the same time having an affair with another man.

Lewis' life took a deadly turn after she married Julian, whom she met at a Danville textile factory in 2000.

Two years later, his son Charles entered the US Army Reserve. When he was called for active duty he obtained a $US250,000 life insurance policy, naming his father the beneficiary and providing temptation for Teresa Lewis.

Both men would have to die for Lewis to receive the insurance payout.

She met at a Walmart with the two men who ultimately killed Julian Lewis and his son. Lewis began an affair with Matthew Shallenberger and later had sex with the other triggerman, Rodney Fuller. She also arranged sex with Fuller and her daughter, who was 16, in a parking lot.

On the night before Halloween in 2002, after she prayed with her husband, Lewis got out of bed, unlocked the door to their mobile home and put the couple's pit bull in a bedroom so the animal wouldn't interfere. Shallenberger and Fuller came in and shot both men several times with the shotguns Lewis had bought for them.

Outside the correctional centre Thursday evening, those opposed to the execution protested with signs and banners on a grassy knoll. Critics said they were repulsed by Virginia's killing of a woman.

"Tonight the death machine exterminated the beautiful childlike and loving spirit of Teresa Lewis,'' said her lawyer, James Rocap.

Originally Posted by genghis61

"Tonight the death machine exterminated the beautiful childlike and loving spirit of Teresa Lewis,'' said her lawyer, James Rocap. __________________

Conveniently ignoring the murder of her husband and stepson.

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

Originally Posted by machangezi

show me how its done.

Though I don't fancy that but if you insist mate. Now get on all fours.

C'mon Macha, your not allowed to mingle with us infidels.
Remember !

Says who? Do you think every Muslim (1.7 billion) believe that?

This woman only made the news....because she's female.

If it was a man, nobody would be paying attention.

News-created story, IMO.

This just reenforces what I feel about the death sentence, its too easy; life without parole is so much harder, look at the suicide.

Originally Posted by hazz

This just reenforces what I feel about the death sentence, its too easy

Isn't premeditated murder also "too easy" ?

Originally Posted by hazz

This just reenforces what I feel about the death sentence, its too easy; life without parole is so much harder, look at the suicide.

it depends on the person; depends on the situation.

Easier end than stoning. And she only arranged a few deaths. Not like she kissed some guy she loved.

The essential tenet of any purportedly Christian country is forgiveness.

In most enlightened democracies this principle is woven into their penal code and in passing judgement upon another the sentence combines three elements, punishment, the rehabilitation of the offender and the protection of society.

Without an element of forgiveness there cannot be salvation.

In observing the death sentence the Virginia state government not only denied this woman the opportunity of redemption but in so doing undermined the foundation of the very society it sought to protect.

Talk of the victims as some sort of justification for institutional murder is just cheap sentiment pandering to the shallow and lumpen but is nevertheless quite potent among the lower end of American society congenitally incapable of understanding extreme retribution simply doesn't work.

Death sentences are barbaric and each one celebrates a victory over humankind.

America is really quite uncivilised in many of its states but then hardly any surprise there since the Teutonic gene with its corrupted chromosone of cruelty and indifference runs through the DNA of their society.

Here is a woman who had the mental capacity to arrange the murder of her stepson and her husband for an insurance policy payout.

She was quite capable of conspiring with her future lover and hitman to carry out this wicked deed.

She through her wickedness and greed has cut short 2 innocent lives and in my opinion deserved the death penalty.

Her 2 hitmen friends should also have been executed.

They showed absolutely no compassion to their victims and deserved none in return.

Originally Posted by bretby

Here is a woman who had the mental capacity to arrange the murder of her stepson and her husband for an insurance policy payout.

She was quite capable of conspiring with her future lover and hitman to carry out this wicked deed.

She through her wickedness and greed has cut short 2 innocent lives and in my opinion deserved the death penalty.

Her 2 hitmen friends should also have been executed.

They showed absolutely no compassion to their victims and deserved none in return.

You summed it up perfectly, bretby.

I still don't know why this is a story.

Originally Posted by Norton

Seems the current Thai government has deemed this pack of libbies a danger to the nation. For some mysterious reason, their website cannot be accessed.

http://www.chula.ac.th/college/law/cen1.htm

Yes it is mysterious isn't it. "Website not found" comes up. Not "Website banned". This pathetic subterfuge is one of the main strategies of Thailand's censorship regime. Censorship censors itself.

They do not have the courage of their convictions to say we have proudly banned this.

Hang on. Maybe they don't have any convictions.

But Internet Freedom, if I may say, is a useful site

There are too many stupid, evil and just downright ugly to the bone people in the world.
Theres no need to get all uppity about snuffing out the life of just one of them, there are foking millions more that need doing.

As Bill Hicks said "theres too many fucking people in the world" a major cull of those who have contributed nothing to humanity should start immediatley.

Originally Posted by Spin

As Bill Hicks said "theres too many fucking people in the world" a major cull of those who have contributed nothing to humanity should start immediatley.

In The Flesh

So ya
Thought ya
Might like to
Go to the show.
To feel that warm thrill of confusion,
That space cadet glow.
I've got some bad news for you sunshine,
Pink isn't well, he stayed back at the hotel
And they sent us along as a surrogate band
We're gonna find out where you folks really stand.

Are there any queers in the theater tonight?
Get them up against the wall!
There's one in the spotlight, he don't look right to me,
Get him up against the wall!
That one looks Jewish!
And that one's a coon!
Who let all of this riff-raff into the room?
There's one smoking a joint,
And another with spots!
If I had my way,
I'd have all of you shot!






Thanks Spin, always fun to hear form the fascist element!

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

Castrate? That's pretty pedestrian, Jools. Did you ever see that movie Hostel II?

As a matter of fact, I HAVE seen it and the first one as well. I am a fairly pedestrian kind of guy.