HUNTSVILLE, Texas
(AP) — The first woman scheduled to be executed in the U.S. since 2010
won a reprieve Tuesday, mere hours before she was scheduled to be taken
to the Texas death chamber.
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.
Dallas County prosecutors, who initially contested the motion to reschedule, chose to not appeal the ruling.
District Attorney Craig Watkins said the 60-day delay was
"appropriate." If no irregularities are discovered, he said he'd move
forward with the execution.
"We want to make sure everything is done correctly," he said.
The 51-year-old McCarthy was convicted and sent to death row for the
1997 stabbing, beating and robbery of a 71-year-old neighbor. She
learned of the reprieve less than five hours before she was scheduled
for lethal injection, already in a small holding cell a few feet from
the death chamber at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville
Unit.
"I'm happy right now over that," she told prison agency spokesman John Hurt. "There's still work to be done on my case."
Hurt said McCarthy was in good spirits and "didn't seem tense or nervous" even before she learned she would live.
A Dallas County jury convicted her of killing neighbor Dorothy Booth
at the retired college psychology professor's home in Lancaster, about
15 miles south of Dallas.
"We are very pleased that we will now have an opportunity to present
evidence of discrimination in the selection of the jury that sentenced
Kimberly McCarthy to death," said Maurie Levin, a University of Texas
law professor and McCarthy's lawyer.
"Of the twelve jurors seated at trial, all were white, except one,
and eligible non-white jurors were excluded from serving by the state.
... These facts must be understood in the context of the troubling and
long-standing history of racial discrimination in jury selection in
Dallas County, including at the time of Ms. McCarthy's trial," Levin
said.
Investigators said Booth had agreed to give McCarthy a cup of sugar
before she was attacked with a butcher knife and candelabra. Booth's
finger also was severed so McCarthy could take her wedding ring. It was
among three slayings linked to McCarthy, who'd been addicted to crack
cocaine.
McCarthy would have been the 13th woman executed in the U.S. and the
fourth in Texas, the nation's busiest death penalty state, since the
Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976. In that same
time period, more than 1,300 male inmates have been executed
nationwide.
Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics compiled from 1980 through 2008
show women make up about 10 percent of homicide offenders nationwide.
According to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, 3,146 people were on the
nation's death rows as of Oct. 1, and only 63 — 2 percent — were women.
AP News
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