The article, Texas carries out a rare occurrence: An execution of a women, posted in the Washington Post, talks about Lisa Coleman who was executed in Texas on Wednesday, September 17, by the lethal injection. The execution occurred about an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court denied the last minute appeal for her case. This 38 year-old woman was given pentobarbital after she was found guilty for the murder of Davontae Williams, her girlfriend’s son. The murder occurred 10 years ago. Marcella Williams, the girlfriend, pleaded guilty for the crime and received a life sentence. Lisa and Marcella had tortured the 9 year-old boy by starving, beating and restraining him, he weighed only 35 pounds and had close to 250 scars on his body when he died. A kidnapping that results in murder is considered to be capital murder in Texas. But a petition filed says that she tortured Davontae, but they never truly kidnapped him, so a capital murder was not committed. Regardless, Lisa Coleman received the capital punishment and Marcella Williams received the life sentence.
The main relevance is that the death penalty is a federal vs. state decision. 32 states in the United States have the death penalty. In the Texas she is ninth person to have been executed and the thirtieth in the country in this past year. Lisa Coleman is also the fifteenth women to have been executed since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 by the Supreme Court. In Texas capital murder is also when murder occurs during a kidnapping. In 2011, capital murder became when a 10 year old or younger is murdered. This shows the difference in the definition of capital murder federally and state-wise. Appeals are also discussed in this article. The U.S. Supreme Court denies the appeal for the case and she receives the lethal injection.
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