Iran seizes on US decision to execute woman

[JBeukema]

Despite appeals for clemency at home and abroad - and accusations of hypocrisy from none other than Iran - the state of Virginia seems set to go ahead tomorrow with the first execution of a woman in the US since 2005, and only the 12th since capital punishment resumed here in 1976.....

But the case, it gradually emerged, was not that simple. Lewis was a gullible woman, of very low intelligence. Shallenberger - a petty criminal with ambitions of being a professional hit-man - boasted to friends that he was the real mastermind of the murder plot.
In 2004 Rodney Fuller, the accomplice, signed an affidavit declaring that "Shallenberger was definitely the one in charge of things, not Ms Lewis".
In the event, however, Shallenberger and Rodney pleaded guilty in return for life imprisonment, while Lewis, borderline mentally retarded and with no previous record of violence, was sentenced to death. For supporters of Lewis and opponents of the death penalty, the different treatment underlines the random and unfair way in which capital punishment is applied in the US.
"When the trigger-men get life and a woman who seems incapable of plotting the crime gets death, something is clearly askew," Amnesty International USA said, arguing that "given the capriciousness of the death penalty overall.... it is clear the system can never be truly just."

Iran seizes on US decision to execute woman - Americas, World - The Independent

 

[ConHog]

I say we send her ass To Iran.

 

[R.C. Christian]

Why shouldn't Iran be able to call kettle black on this subject?

 

[Baruch Menachem]

Something seriously wrong with a society where a woman entering into a voluntary marriage is considered a crime equivalent to murder.