Attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the scheduled Wednesday evening September 17, 2014 execution of a Texas woman convicted of the starvation and torture death of her girlfriend's 9-year-old son a decade ago. Lisa Coleman, 38, would be the ninth convicted killer and second woman to receive lethal injection in Texas this year. Nationally, she would be only the 15th woman executed since the Supreme Court in 1976 allowed the death penalty to resume. During that same time, nearly 1,400 men have been executed.
Coleman was condemned for the death of Davontae Williams, whose emaciated body was found in July 2004 at the Fort Worth, Texas apartment Coleman shared with the boy's mother, Marcella Williams. Paramedics who found him dead said they were shocked to learn his age. He weighted 36 pounds, about half that of a normal 9-year-old. He had more than 250 injuries, including ligature marks to his arms, hands, feet and genitals, burns from cigarettes or cigars, and that his growth had stopped because of a lack of food.
"There was not an inch of his body that had not been bruised or scarred or injured," said Dixie Bersano, one of Coleman's trial prosecutors. After a Tarrant County jury in 2006 convicted and sent Coleman to death row, Williams took a plea bargain and accepted a life prison sentence. Now 33, she's not eligible for parole until 2044.
Coleman's lawyer, John Stickels, argued to the high court that while the child's hands were tied with clothesline at various times, it was "mostly a misguided means of discipline" used by both woman. According to the attorney, the aggravating factor of kidnapping, which made the charge against Coleman a capital murder case, was incorrect, making the jury's conviction on that charge also incorrect...
[At six-thirty Wednesday evening September 17, 2014, Lisa Coleman received her lethal injection at the state prison in Huntsville, Texas.]
Michael Graczyk, "Texas Woman Set to Die For Starvation of Child, 9," auburnpub.com, September 17, 2014
Coleman was condemned for the death of Davontae Williams, whose emaciated body was found in July 2004 at the Fort Worth, Texas apartment Coleman shared with the boy's mother, Marcella Williams. Paramedics who found him dead said they were shocked to learn his age. He weighted 36 pounds, about half that of a normal 9-year-old. He had more than 250 injuries, including ligature marks to his arms, hands, feet and genitals, burns from cigarettes or cigars, and that his growth had stopped because of a lack of food.
"There was not an inch of his body that had not been bruised or scarred or injured," said Dixie Bersano, one of Coleman's trial prosecutors. After a Tarrant County jury in 2006 convicted and sent Coleman to death row, Williams took a plea bargain and accepted a life prison sentence. Now 33, she's not eligible for parole until 2044.
Coleman's lawyer, John Stickels, argued to the high court that while the child's hands were tied with clothesline at various times, it was "mostly a misguided means of discipline" used by both woman. According to the attorney, the aggravating factor of kidnapping, which made the charge against Coleman a capital murder case, was incorrect, making the jury's conviction on that charge also incorrect...
[At six-thirty Wednesday evening September 17, 2014, Lisa Coleman received her lethal injection at the state prison in Huntsville, Texas.]
Michael Graczyk, "Texas Woman Set to Die For Starvation of Child, 9," auburnpub.com, September 17, 2014
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