Post by ScotKaren on Jun 21, 2006 5:45:38 GMT -5
First Black woman executed in Texas
Thursday, 22 September 2005
The US state of Texas has carried out its first execution of a black woman since the Civil War.
Frances Newton was convicted of killing her husband, seven-year-old son and baby daughter in 1987. Blaming the murders on a mystery drug dealer.
Prosecutors said she had murdered her family to claim a $100,000 life insurance payout.
The American Bar Association had asked for a stay of execution, saying new evidence had not yet been evaluated by the Texas courts.
In a letter to the Texas governor and Pardon Board, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark wrote: "A person of financial means would never have been convicted and probably never even tried in such a case."
But prosecutors said evidence directly linked Newton to the murders and the Supreme Court rejected two late appeals on Wednesday.
Newton, 40, declined to make a final statement or make a last meal request.
Her death by lethal injection was witnessed by her parents and sister, and also by relatives of her husband.
Newton is the third woman to have been executed in Texas since the state re-introduced the death penalty in 1982.
Thursday, 22 September 2005
The US state of Texas has carried out its first execution of a black woman since the Civil War.
Frances Newton was convicted of killing her husband, seven-year-old son and baby daughter in 1987. Blaming the murders on a mystery drug dealer.
Prosecutors said she had murdered her family to claim a $100,000 life insurance payout.
The American Bar Association had asked for a stay of execution, saying new evidence had not yet been evaluated by the Texas courts.
In a letter to the Texas governor and Pardon Board, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark wrote: "A person of financial means would never have been convicted and probably never even tried in such a case."
But prosecutors said evidence directly linked Newton to the murders and the Supreme Court rejected two late appeals on Wednesday.
Newton, 40, declined to make a final statement or make a last meal request.
Her death by lethal injection was witnessed by her parents and sister, and also by relatives of her husband.
Newton is the third woman to have been executed in Texas since the state re-introduced the death penalty in 1982.