The U.S. Supreme Court has just refused to block the execution of Teresa Lewis, whom I blogged about Sept. 8, setting the stage for Virginia's first execution of a woman in nearly a century. Lewis is scheduled to die by injection Thursday for hiring two men to kill her husband and stepson for a quarter-million dollar insurance payout.Two of the three women on the high court, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, voted to stop the execution. The court did not otherwise comment on its order Tuesday.
Lewis's supporters have argued that she does not deserve to die because she is borderline mentally retarded and was manipulated by a smarter conspirator. It is unfair, they say, that she was sentenced to death while the two triggermen received life sentences, writes Washington Post crime scene blogger Maria Blod.
A CBS video interview with Lewis is HERE. Reaction from Iran is HERE.
Thank you for making this availabe. I haven't found any coverage of this case in Australia yet.
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome. Nice to see a big spike in my readership from Australia these days. I'm heading down there next year to give a keynote talk at the annual forensic psychology conference.
ReplyDeleteGreat news, I'll have to come and introduce myself to you. I might be giving a paper on my jury research.
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