This morning the US executed it's first female prisoner for 5 years, and the first in Virginia for 98 years. Now whilst I am not actually a supporter of the death penalty this is not due to a belief in the sacrosancticity of human life but rather that I believe that there should not be a death penalty until there can be no doubt of guilt, as long as there is a chance that the conviction could be wrong the punishment has to be reversible. I am not however joining the, apparently, thousands of people who are complaining at the execution of Teresa Lewis, this woman arranged for the execution of both her husband and her step son to claim on a $250,000 life insurance policy. It is reported that she not only offered to sleep with the two gun men in return for their assistance, but also allowed them to have sex with her 16 year old daughter, after both her husband and step son were shot she went through their pockets in order to check for money before calling the emergency services. If the Death penalty is to be used, then surely this is the kind of criminal it should be kept for. The two gunmen Matthew Shallenberger and Rodney Fuller were sentenced to life in prison where Shallenberger took his own life in 2006, Lewis' defence lawyer James Rocap III has claimed that Shallenberger was the real mastermind behind the murder (A claim they did not make before he committed suicide.) and that Lewis therefore did not deserve the death penalty, it is hard however to understand how he can claim this when you take into account that this was her second attempt to get her husband murdered. I also find his statement 'A good and decent person is about to lose her life because of a system that is broken,' a little hard to accept as well.
The final "Seriously?" moment of this story involves the international outcry, from none other than Woman's Rights activist and humanitarian: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
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