If Texas executes Frances Newton as scheduled on Tuesday, she would become the first woman put to death in two years, despite serious doubts about a botched defense and a poor investigation.
Only 10 women have been suffered the death penalty since it was reinstated in the United States in 1976, out of a total of 944 executions.
The most recent was Aileen Wuornos, in October 2002, a prostitute and drifter, accused of having killed a number of men.
The macabre odyssey inspired the film Monster, starring Charlize Theron, who won an Oscar for the role.
Newton, 39, was charged in April 1987 with the murder of her husband and her two children. Her husband was found on the living room sofa with a bullet in the head, while her son and daughter were found in their beds, each with a bullet to the chest.
During the trial, prosecutors said Newton had killed her family in order to collect $100 000 dollars in life insurance indemnification, although the children were not covered.
The defendant, who has claimed her innocence for more than 17 years, had no alternative explanation for the killings, but said they could have been a vendetta, because her husband had been a drug addict for some time.
The prosecution’s case rested heavily on ballistics evidence, which was provided by the Harris County crime lab. The lab is so mired in controversy that Houston’s police chief, Harold Hurtt, has asked Texas to delay any execution.
”Considering the controversy surrounding Houston’s crime lab, it is the only reasonable choice to avoid sending a possibly innocent woman to her death,” Wendy Patten, US advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
Newton’s lawyer, David Dow, of the Texas Innocence Network at the University of Houston Law Centre, has been working ”actively on the case since mid-September”.
The group has filed a petition before the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles asking for a 120-day stay of execution to allow further investigation of the case.
The board must give its answer before 6pm (11.59pm GMT) Tuesday and its decision will be sent to Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has the final word.
The Court of Criminal Appeals, Texas’ highest criminal court, has already denied the delay. The same petition is pending in federal court.
”I am never optimistic, but always hopeful,” Dow said.
Steve Hall, director of StandDown Texas, which fights for a moratorium on the death penalty, held out little hope of a stay in Texas, which executes more prisoners than any other state.
”In spite of questions, it is likely, given this is Texas,” he said. ”This case never received a proper investigation. The defence attorney is notorious for ineffective assistance to defendants, led no investigation, and has been sanctioned by the Bar on multiple occasions,” he said.
”There are contradictions that frankly should have been examined years ago. What happened is what often happens: It’s only at the last minute that a good lawyer gets involved in a case.”
Several groups, such as the ACLU and the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, are in the last-minute effort to save Newton. – Sapa-AFP