Teresa Lewis is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection today, Thursday, Sept. 23, 2010. At 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, she will be the first woman to be put to death by the State of Virginia since 1912. Lewis' crime is not one that ordinarily would warrant the death penalty. If any case has highlighted the need for the abolition of capital punishment, it is Teresa Lewis' impending execution.
Lewis was sentenced to death for plotting the murders of her husband and stepson, yet the two actual murderers, Matthew Shallenberger and Rodney Fuller, received only life sentences. Lewis never held a gun or fired a shot, but received a harsher sentence than those who did. Equally disturbing are the results of an IQ test administered to Lewis prior to sentencing which showed that she had a full scale IQ of 72. In other words, she was functioning at an intellectual level far below the norm, on the borderline of mental retardation.
According to Court documents submitted as part of Lewis' appeal, Shallenberger has stated that he and not Lewis was the actual mastermind behind the murders of Julian and Charles Lewis -- though prosecutors claimed that Lewis "lured" Shallenberger and Fuller into helping her. Furthermore, Fuller also 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."
Dr. McCance-Katz, a psychiatrist who examined Lewis in 2004, explained that her IQ score revealed that she was likely to "have difficulty with reasoning and judgment," and that "persons with this level of functioning are likely to have difficulty with complex tasks such as problem solving, arguably the most important skill necessary to support the accusation that Ms. Lewis planned and directed the murder for hire.
This examination tallies with that of Dr. Costanzo, a psychologist and professor at Duke University who examined Teresa after she was sentenced. He explained that "because of her multiple functional deficits, [Teresa's] functional mental age is that of a young teen in the range of 12-14 years of age, and that while she scored 72 on her overall IQ, Teresa scored within the intellectually disabled range on the "intelligence subtests reflecting normative comprehension and deliberation in social domains, verbal knowledge, abstract reasoning, arithmetic abilities and short run memory and concentration." Dr. Costanzo stated:
This pattern of verbal abilities suggests that Ms. Lewis has quite profound functional limitations in verbal domains. Decision making and planning in advance greatly depend upon verbal mediation and scaffolding. It is quite unlikely that a person of Ms. Lewis' verbal intelligence could form the abstract cognitive 'bridge' from present-time to future-time that would be necessary to any but the simplest planned activities or ends.
In short, Teresa's documented level of intellectual functioning, cognition and judgment make it far more likely that she was led into the scheme by Shallenberger -- as Shallenbeger himself has stated -- and not vice versa. Lewis' attorney James E. Rocap III has argued that one of the gunmen later claimed he manipulated Lewis, and "duped her into believing he loved her so that he could achieve his own selfish goals."
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. Yet, today, she will be executed. Teresa Lewis' mental health alone should grant her exemption from this execution. Furthermore, the fact that she did not carry out the executions should also exempt her from the death penalty. This is an unconscionable failure of the system.
According to Laura Moye, director of AISA's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign:
This case highlights the arbitrary nature of capital punishment in our nation. 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.
Rocap has urged Gov. Bob McDonnell to reconsider his decision to deny clemency to Lewis, claiming that there is new evidence that should spare her the death penalty. To quote a letter sent to Gov. McDonnell earlier this week by Amnesty International USA:
"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."
In 2002 in Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court prohibited the death penalty for people with mental retardation. The Court reasoned that the impairments of defendants with mental retardation diminish their personal culpability and their ability to understand consequences, rendering the death penalty unjustifiable on grounds of retribution or deterrence.
As Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador and Founder and Chair of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation (BJHRF), and as a Member of the Executive Director's Leadership Council of Amnesty International, I respectfully urge Governor Bob McDonnell to consider all the mitigating factors in this case. I appeal to him to halt the execution of Teresa Lewis and grant her clemency, commuting her sentence to life imprisonment. It is not too late. If Teresa Lewis is executed tonight, in this questionable case, it will be an egregious miscarriage of justice: a lasting shame on the American legal system.
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You are awake but frozen and cant move. That makes it nicer for all to witness the torment... Then drug #2 comes to stop your breathing , so in essence you suffocate...
If they didn't give you the first drug this second part would be a horror to watch..Suffocating that is.. then the third drug comes and it stops your heart. .Gives you a heat-attack. Very painful. while awake unless you suffocated already from drug 2.. But not being able to move or cry out because of drug #1. So the first drug makes it look as if you just went to sleep.. No, it was made this way to actually inflict most harm, pain, torment and torture
That solve it ?
“An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.â€and
“Hate the sin and love the sinner.â€
BTW I am all for capital punishment in the most extreme circumstances but this is just wrong.
You are awake but frozen and cant move. That makes it nicer for all to witness the torment... Then drug #2 comes to stop your breathing , so in essence you suffocate...
If they didn't give you the first drug this second part would be a horror to watch..Suffocating that is.. then the third drug comes and it stops your heart. .Gives you a heat-attack. Very painful. while awake unless you suffocated already from drug 2.. But not being able to move or cry out from drug #1. So the first drug makes it look as if you just went to sleep.. No it was made this way to actually inflict most harm, pain, torment and torture
http://www2.newsadvance.com/news/2010/sep/23/teresa-lewis-nears-final-hour-ar-522197/
Justice must be applied fairly, and consistently, and must meet the severity of the crime.
This cannot be left to the varied emotions of the victims; it is up to society do decide fair punishment, and carry it out when necessary.
Do they not care about putting to death a mentally and emotionally limited woman who was clearly manipulated by a natural born killer; so it seems.
Tereas's IQ 70, as well as psychological problems, was easy prey for Matthew Shallenberger the clever and ambitious young man, just out of the military, with an IQ more than 40 points higher at 113.
What is wrong with a judge who could call such a limited woman a "mastermind" ... "the head of the serpent." And other judges, justices, and the governor support his inhumane decision? The evidence and the witnesses prove the error.
Is the judiciary and the governor's office "saving face" by putting to death a desperately limited woman? Rather than taking time to consider, to change the path they are on leading to egregious injustice. Perhaps they think after the death penalty has been accomplished in this case, it will be be forgotten. They are wrong.
This is America today. State sanctioned death of the handicapped, the retarded? I don't like it.
We have to be careful what we wish for when we take a gander at some of the women running for office today obviously being propelled not by brains but by billionaires.
eye for an eye, i say. however, the same should apply for the past president (and his posse) down to the drug dealer around the corner.
But...
One's gender should have nothing to do with getting a reprieve or a different punishment.
As a nursing assistant, she was qualified to tote bed pans (etc.)
http://www.lexisone.com/lx1/caselaw/freecaselaw?action=OCLGetCaseDetail&format=FULL&sourceID=bdjcca&searchTerm=eOYS.NIEa.aadj.edfa&searchFlag=y&l1loc=FCLOW
As has been said before, people are trying to make is sound as though she was unable to tie her shoes without help; this is not the case.
If you have been following the case, you should notice that much of the information about her and the other murderers that is being posted today is uncorroborated, unsourced hearsay. As we get close, some people are posting anything, however inaccurate, to sway opinion.