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Texas Department of Criminal Justice via Reuters
Kimberly McCarthy is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Tuesday for the stabbing murder of her neighbor in 1997.
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A Dallas judge has halted the scheduled Tuesday night execution of a Texas woman who would have been the first woman put to death in the U.S. in three years.
The order from state District Judge Larry Mitchell moves the execution of Kimberly McCarthy, 51, to April 3.
McCarthy faced lethal injection for the 1997 beating, stabbing and robbery of a 71-year-old neighbor in Lancaster, about 15 miles south of Dallas.
Lawyers for McCarthy, who is black, argued that the jury that convicted and sentenced her to death was selected improperly based on race. It was made up of 11 white people and one black person.
The Dallas County District Attorney's office said it wouldn't appeal the ruling. The DA's office had called the effort a "mere delay" tactic, saying the record didn't support a valid legal claim for discrimination.
A Dallas County jury had already found McCarthy, a former nursing home therapist, guilty of the killing when evidence at the punishment phase of her trial tied her to two similar murders a decade earlier.
"Once the jury heard about those other two, we were certainly in a deep hole," recalled McCarthy's lead trial attorney, Doug Parks. Jurors decided McCarthy should die.
Her execution would have been the first since a Virginia inmate, Teresa Lewis, became the 12th woman put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 allowed capital punishment to resume. In that same time, 1,309 men have been executed.
McCarthy also would have been the first woman executed in Texas in more than eight years and the fourth overall in the state, which executes the most people in the nation — 492 prisoners since capital punishment resumed 30 years ago.
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 last Oct. 1, and only 63 — 2 percent — were women.
Ring cut from living victim
Evidence showed McCarthy, who has exhausted her court appeals, phoned Booth to borrow a cup of sugar, then attacked Booth when she went to retrieve it. Booth was stabbed with a butcher knife, beaten with a large candle holder and robbed of a diamond wedding ring.
"(McCarthy) quite literally took the woman, put her left hand on a chopping block of the kitchen and then used a knife to sever her ring finger while she was still alive," said Greg Davis, the former Dallas County assistant district attorney who prosecuted McCarthy. "She took the ring from the finger that had been severed and continued the attack until she finally killed her."
Prosecutors showed McCarthy stole Booth's Mercedes and drove to Dallas, pawned the ring for $200 and then went to a crack house to buy some cocaine. Evidence also showed she used Booth's credit cards at a liquor store and was carrying Booth's driver's license.
Booth's DNA was found on a 10-inch butcher knife recovered from McCarthy's home. McCarthy was arrested after police found her name on a pawn shop receipt for the ring.
McCarthy was tried twice for Booth's slaying, most recently in 2002. Her first conviction in 1998 was thrown out three years later by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which ruled police violated her rights by using a statement she made to them after asking for a lawyer.
Prosecutors presented DNA and fingerprint evidence that tied McCarthy to similar slayings of two other women in Dallas in December 1988. Maggie Harding, 81, was beaten with a meat tenderizer and stabbed.
Jettie Lucas, 85, was beaten with both sides of a claw hammer and stabbed. McCarthy was indicted but not tried for those slayings. She denied any involvement.
“When the jury saw the other two were equally gruesome, I think it sealed the deal for her," Davis said.
McCarthy is a former wife of Aaron Michaels, founder of the New Black Panther Party, and he testified on her behalf. They had separated before Booth's slaying.
McCarthy declined to speak with reporters as her execution date neared. She's one of 10 women on death row in Texas but the only one with an execution date.
In 1998, Karla Faye Tucker, 38, became the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War for a robbery in Houston where two people were killed with a pickax.
At least eight male Texas prisoners have executions scheduled in the coming months.
Related:
Widow asks Pennsylvania governor not to execute husband's killer
Convicted Ohio killer: I'm too obese to be executed
Leave a Comment:
Robert in Oregon,
I really do wish that high and mighty liberals like yourself who think they're so above "eye for an eye" while talking about the economics of the death penalty (as though economic factors were even relevant to justice) would learn to sympathize with the victims (and they're families) half as much as you seem to sympathize with some scum who's merely getting a small sampling of the agony they've caused someone else. Your empathy is quite selective and it nauseates those of us with a shred of compassion for the victims. You citing deterent rates like some bureaucrat is really too much. If your wife were murdered in such way, how would that make you feel to have some professorial egghead like yourself explain in some high pseudo-intellectual manner why it is that you can't get justice for your wife?
Why is it so hard to comprehend that being against capitol punishment does not mean lack of compassion for victims or hatred of them. It just means that one is agqainst capitol punishment. It is adheareance to the true christian principle.
I am neither opposed nor for the death penalty but I surely recognize that God will serve justice on all. You are only revealing how stupid you are by insulting people for holding to their principles. You also reveal your bigotry towrds your intellectual superiors. That is why people like you are not left to run much. You are just not wise enough.
Interesting point. I've always been perplexed about Christian Republicans support of the death penalty.
Texas is about to execute a woman, yet George W. Bush (who claims to be Christian) isn't around to mock her? My, how times have changed.
What are you talking about?
I didn't realize that Christians were for some reason unable to mock cowards who stick icepicks into people's skulls. Why don't you let Dubya worry about his own faith. Carla Faye Tucker deserved to fry.
Execute the hideous hag, and do it soon. Her crimes were hate crimes. She's a hater.
And what about your comment indicates you are not a hater?
No your the hater, she was a junkie!
But, but, it doesn't matter what she did, she's black. You can't execute her. It may fan the flames of racial hatred. Wouldn't want to do anything to aggravate the New Black Panthers now would we?
Shut up and get on with it.
Why don't YOU shut up?
This case clearly indicates a need for a BAN on meat tenderisers and claw hammers!
Finally, the voice of reason!
She has sown the wind,now she can now, reap the whirlwind!
1
One less obama voter???
Racist POS. You reveal your hateful nature!
Actually elithian you can shove your racism up your Ass!!!
Has nothing to do with racism you idiot!!!!
I know who you are Gary; you are an angry bitter man full of hatred and envy because of your own failures and sorry ways. You pair this criminal with Obama, who makes you look like a the POS you are, when it is highly likely this woman doesn't even vote, never did and didn't have a clue about Obama when she was murdering people. Sorry, Gary, to disappoint you but I am not an idiot and racist, uneducated bigots like you calling me one doesn't really hit my meter; it is just another hoot and hollar from the TPC. Why don't you get a life and perhaps notice that Obama has not, even though he could, commuted her sentence, or any other person. Perhaps he is more in touch with the rule of law than you are and if I had to choose a friend I would choose him over you any day of the week, month, year or my life. So enjoy your hate filled venom pit and please feel free to insult me some more because it only reveals how right I am.
elithian you sound like an angry black person, throwing out racist in an attempt to shut your opposition up!!!
I have opposed your community organizing marxist, from day one!!!
But while we are at it your racist, marxist idol in the white house (beer summit, martin, philly panthers) has done an excellent job of dividing this country, right down the middle!!!
In 2043, your wish will come true, whites will now longer be the majority, Latino's will be!!!
How ever you will remain at 14%, how long will you be able to hold onto your hate???
You tell him Gary. This elithian-1701225 character, this bleeding heart liberal probably wishes he had been on that jury so he could have hung it with his not guilty vote. Like most who voted for the Marxist devil obama, he will get his in the 'end'.
Murder committed in 1997?? It is 2013...why is she still breathing? It is cruel and unusual to sentence someone to death and not deliver.
Why so long..? Bye bitch...lol
When I was younger I opposed the death penalty for a variety of reasons. As I get older my opposition has given way to the thought that some of these criminals make a good arguement for the death penalty; this woman is one of them. She has demonstrated an utter disregard for the rights and feelings of others, she has sadistically murdered three people ( all white demonstrating her racial hatred) and now she wants to play the race card like that would mitigate the responsible jury's decision. She is underserving of mercy from the rule of law and only God can give her that. Each breath she draws is an afront to humanity. No argument on her behalf could warrant a stay of execution. The only argument would have to be on the behalf of those of us who love God and keep his commandments so as not to soil our hands to hasten her judgement which will surely come.
Is that phrase, 'rule of law' the only thing you know? Do you even know what it means in real life, and not your in your academic world? I mentioned by several posters already, you are truly an idiot of epic proportions. Do us all a favor, shut your pie hole and go stick your head back in the sand.
should have been done years ago....but she's black and a drug addict so not her fault..
And you're white and an idiot so your ignorance is not your fault. LOL
Every crime deserves a punishment,regardless of race,creed or color. The harsher the crime the harsher the penalty, and the crime of brutal murder sits on the top of the list. Death is the proper penalty and justice for the deceased will be served.
Put her to sleep already,She wants an appeal what nerve,did those poor dead woman get an appeal for their lives.And what good is she for the state.Put the monster down.
Well, isn't it interesting that this woman, this low life scum, this poor excuse for a human being, was found guilty by a jury of eleven whites and one non-white? Some how the liberal press just cannot write an article with out bringing race into it. Is the author suggesting that she was found guilty just because she is black? If there had been overwhelming evidence against her and the jury was all black and they found her not guilty, would that satisfy all you racist pigs out there. I'm sick and tired of whites being accused of racism at every turn when in fact it is many blacks who keep fanning the fires of racism to keep it alive. Why haven't Rev Al and Jesse come to her rescue?
What makes you think the reporter was a liberal just because they accurately describe the facts. It is notable that the one black juror could have refused to condemn her and that would have been enough. It is also you noticing what is improtant to you; race. I am afraid you are the racist here and you are no true conservative because a true conservative believes in the rule of law, equal opportunity under the law, and support of our Bill of Rights. Maybe the individuals have not come to her rescue because they accepted the verdict. Please don't identify yourself as a conservative because you are embarassment to true conservatives.
And you, who ever you may be, are an idiot. It wasn't me who wrote the article. It wasn't me who mentioned how many whites were on the jury. I simply read the article and commented on its content you knucklehead. And do you seriously think that Revs Al and Jesse agree with any guilty verdict against a black person? If you do then you are more naive than I thought you were in the beginning. People like you have had you heads in the sand for too long. Lastly, you have no place to tell anyone how they should or shouldn't identify with any political group. Oh, one more thing, did I mention that there is a village some where looking for you?
I would be willing to bet, that if someone murdered one of the family members of these anti execution people, they would want to push the plunger, or whatever it is called on the needle. It is still more humane than what happened to the victims of their crimes.
"All but one of McCarthy's jurors were white."
That's right NBC. Let's stir things up and make this a racial issue. She is a murderer. The jury convicted a murderer. Not a black murderer. A cold dangerous murderer.
...
An unbelievable case of profiling !!
She is implicated in two other murders - so immediately that makes her guilty of this one.
These poor blacks.
When will it stop??
.
Biden in 2016.
...
Punishments need to fit their crimes, but most people are incapable of inflicting the kind of pain on this woman that she inflicted on her victims. After she spent 14 years in prison while she exercised our judicial system to its full extent, there are still people out there who want to give her another chance.
The argument about "the government murdering people" misses the point that WE are the government, and WE decided that this was an appropriate punishment. The only inhumane part of it is that we gave her 14 years of life that she didn't deserve.
Hey Robert in Oregon- who the hell cares if the death penalty is not a deterrent? WHO CARES!!! This person does not deserve to breath air and we should not have to support this nut for the rest of her life in jail...Kill her!!! The sooner the better!!!
This thing is not a human being, it is a parasite that kills without remorse.
And you God fearing people would show her mercy? Where was the mercy she showed? And where in the bible does it say that we should risk our lives by allowing this thing to live. It is death, and deserves to be sent back from whence it came!
I am God Fearing and loving, but I'm amazed at the spinelessness and ignorance of those around me!
Just one less Obama voter.
Let me put the needle in her arm.....She deserves everything she gets....Kills her neighbor for a ring...scumbag. We been feeding this bit-h to long already......Texas this is the only thing i like about you......You dont hesitate to take out the trash.
A ring she pawned for 200 for crack. How can anyone defend her? I can't imagine the terror that poor woman went through, and from a trusted caregiver.
Read the story...this lady is good for nothing but fertilizer....and now your going to hear all the race hustlers and race pimps.
WTF does her race have to do with anything? She murdered 3+ people. Guilty is guilty regardless of race, religion, gender, etc. At least this former crack head will be coherent when she descends into hell.
Even an inbred "bagger" should know, whatever your position on capital punishment, the State is far too corrupt, and morally bankrupt to be entrusted with such life and death decisions. You need look no farther than the congressional delegation from the Lone Star State to get my drift. We must first root out the evil in the halls of power before Big Brother can be entrusted with matters of such gravity. HILLARY OR JOE 2016!
Donkey Bagger? Yes thats it, just another Donkey Bagger about to be put to death. That opens up a spot for another liberal on the welfare rolls.
yep hillary the butcher of benghazi