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CONTACT: Amnesty International - USA |
Amnesty International Urges Governor to Commute Teresa Lewis Execution
WASHINGTON - September 14 - Amnesty International
USA (AIUSA) today urged Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell to commute the
death sentence of Teresa Lewis. If Lewis, a mentally challenged woman
who was convicted of plotting the murders of her husband and stepson, is
executed on September 23, she would be the first woman killed in Virginia’s
death chambers since 1912.
“Proceeding with this execution would come
dangerously close to violating the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits capital
punishment for those with ‘mental retardation’ -- a precedent established
thanks to
Atkins v. Virginia,” wrote AIUSA Executive Director Larry
Cox in a letter sent to the governor. It is one of hundreds that
Amnesty International members worldwide have flooded the governor’s office
within recent weeks.
Lewis was sentenced to death while the two
actual murderers, Matthew Shallenberger and Rodney Fuller, received life
sentences. Psychological assessments of Lewis and an admission by
Shallenberger that he was the actual mastermind behind the murders cast
doubt on the prosecution’s assertion that Lewis orchestrated the crimes.
Though prosecutors claimed that Lewis “lured” Shallenberger and
Fuller into helping her murder Julian and Charles Lewis, Fuller himself
stated that “Ms. Lewis would do just about anything Shallenberger asked
her to do,” and that “Shallenberger was definitely the one in charge
of things, not Ms. Lewis.”
A professor of psychology at Duke University
concluded that “when multiple sources of evidence are taken into account,
it is very clear that Teresa possessed neither the verbal intelligence
nor the independent initiative to frame and mastermind a plan to murder
the victims.” Although Lewis tested with an IQ of 72, the Duke professor
stated that “the level of intellectual functioning of one with a 72 IQ
would not be discernibly distinctive from one with a 69 IQ. Certainly,
it would not be professionally reasonable to base a life or death decision
on three IQ points.” Psychologists look for signs of intellectual
disability when an IQ score is below 70.
“This case highlights the arbitrary nature
of capital punishment in our nation,” said Laura Moye, director of AIUSA’s
Death Penalty Abolition Campaign. “When the triggermen get life
and a woman who seems incapable of plotting the crime gets death, something
is clearly askew. Given the capriciousness of the death penalty overall,
combined with issues such as witness misidentification and shabby lawyering,
it is clear that the system can never be truly just. The only real
remedy is striking this heinous punishment from the books nationwide.”
The United States has carried out 1,224 executions
– 1213 men (99 percent) and 11 women – since resuming judicial killing
in 1977. Virginia accounts for 107 of these executions. The last woman
put to death in Virginia was Virginia Christian, who was killed in the
state’s electric chair on August 11, 1912, for a murder committed when
she was 17 years old. The last woman put to
death in the United States was Frances Newton
in Texas in September 2005. There have been 36 executions in the United
States this year, two of them in Virginia.
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.8 million supporters, activists and volunteers who campaign for universal human rights from more than 150 countries. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.
5 Comments so far
Show AllTeresa Lewis did mastermind the murders of her husband and stepson in 2002. Regardless of her not pulling the trigger, she was most certainly a first hand participant and orchestrator of the motivation for the crime. Her counsel is attempting to lay the blame on co-conspirator Shallenberger, who received a life sentence and committed suicide while incarcerated.
This doesn't mitigate the actions of Lewis, who conceived the possibility of large windfall from being the beneficiary on both victims' life insurance policy, who contracted both gunmen and engaged in a tryst with them while plotting the crime, who let the killers into the home the night of the murder and drank an iced tea while her husband and stepson were murdered in their beds. She also delayed calling 9-1-1 as her husband lay bleeding to death, but did go through searching his wallet for money.
Teresa isn't retarded. She wrote a fairly well worded testimony of her faith, which is published on the web. She also likely was coached to flub questions on her IQ test to help lower her score. She isn't the brightest bulb, but she does understand and acknowledge her crime as well as that death is her punishment for that crime.
She isn't lying in a puddle of her own waste, babbling incoherently at Fluvanna either, she is constantly participating in interaction at prison church services. Additionally, she did manage to graduate from high school and spent a semester at college.
Governor McDonnell should and will follow the lead of our courts and refuse to intervene in this case.
The article doesn't really explain why capital punishment needs to end. It seems to condone execution if the person has the intelligence and other traits va_justice, in his comment before this one, attributes to Teresa Lewis.
There are two compelling arguments against capital punishment, one of which applies here.
First, the possibility of erroneous convictions in capital cases is well known. An intolerably large percentage of capital convictions have been reversed due to DNA evidence. In most capital cases, DNA evidence isn't available. But it's inductively clear that a similarly intolerable error rate would apply to those cases, there being no distinction between DNA and non-DNA cases that would lead one to think convictions in non-DNA cases are more reliable. In fact, because DNA sometimes exonerates people accused of capital crime before trial, it seems logical that error is more likely in non-DNA cases.
The other reason capital punishment should be ended rests on a moral ground. This does apply to the Lewis case. There is a moral duty to forgive. Forgiveness involves a bilateral process in which the person to be forgiven earns it by his/her attitude and deeds following the crime. The main task in life of a person like Lewis is to earn forgiveness, especially that of survivors who were directly or indirectly harmed (she in fact appears to understand this). To execute her will eliminate the possibility of her accomplishing this, and thus cut off the possibility of the accomplishment of a moral duty. Of course, if Lewis could earn forgiveness, that would also make executing her morally offensive.
There is no question of a wrongful conviction nor role for DNA post conviction testing in this matter. Teresa Lewis has pleaded guilty to the crimes and freely admits her culpability. She feels sorry only that she was apprehended. Her requests for forgiveness have not been accepted by the survivors of the victims. However her actions must be punished by the state. Execution is appropriate given the grievous suffering inflicted on the victims and the raw greed that fueled Teresa Lewis' plot.
va_justice September 15th, 2010 1:57 pm -- I think it's a question of timing. If Lewis was reasonably expected to inflict the suffering on the victims, the state would be justified in stopping her, with deadly force if necessary. But given that she was taken into custody and is now both defenseless and very unlikely to kill or injure anyone, there is no moral justification for execution. Legal justification, yes; moral, no. Obviously morality doesn't much interest you. [Revised]
This case highlights the arbitrary nature of capital punishment in our nation,” said Laura Moye, director of AIUSA’s Death Penalty Abolition Campaign. “When the triggermen get life and a woman who seems incapable of plotting the crime gets death, something is clearly askew.
this statement is absolutely absurd. this woman deserves death. I believe that keeping killers locked up for life is torture.. Kill them quickly.