Kimberly McCarthy will be the first woman in the United States in over two years to be executed by lethal injection, according to the Huffington Post.
“The execution is scheduled to be carried out at the state prison in Huntsville, Texas after 6 p.m. local time.”
However, several hours before her execution, “State District Judge Larry Mitchell, in Dallas, rescheduled Kimberly McCarthy's punishment for April 3 so lawyers for the former nursing home therapist could have more time to pursue an appeal focused on whether her predominantly white jury was improperly selected on the basis of race. McCarthy is black,” said Fox News.
McCarthy, 51, was sentenced to death because she entered her 71-year-old neighbor’s Texas home in 1997, pretending she needed some sugar. Then she stabbed Dorothy Booth, five times. McCarthy also chopped off Booth’s left ring finger and stole her diamond ring.
“McCarthy also was believed to be responsible for the murders of two other elderly women, one using a meat tenderizer as a weapon and another using a claw hammer, according to the Attorney General's summary.”
She was found guilty in 1998 and sentenced to death. Her case was retried, but McCarthy was found guilty once more in 2002.
She was sentenced to death again.
In the United States, women are hardly executed. In fact, only a dozen female inmates have been “put to death since capital punishment was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.”
Teresa Lewis, a prisoner in Virginia, was the last woman to be executed on September 23, 2010.
Richard Dieter, executive director of the information center, said women “commit about 10 percent of murders.” However, Dieter explained that women usually do not have lengthy criminal records.
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