By CAMERON FULLER
cameron@du2.byu.edu
Karla Faye Tucker, the pickax killer whose born-again Christianity sparked a worldwide debate over redemption and retribution on death row, was executed Tuesday for hacking a man and woman to death during a 1983 break-in.
Tucker, 38, was declared dead by injection at 6:45 p.m. She became the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War.
'I am going to be face to face with Jesus now,' Tucker said in her final words. 'I love all of you very much. I will see you all when you get there. I will wait for you.'
The execution came less than an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an 11th-hour appeal and Gov. George W. Bush refused to grant a 30-day reprieve, saying her case had been thoroughly reviewed by appellate courts.
'Like many touched by this case, I have sought guidance through prayer. I have concluded judgment about the heart and soul of an individual on death row are best left to a higher authority,' Bush said.
'May God bless Karla Faye Tucker and God bless her victims and their families,' he said.
On Monday, the Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected 16-0 Ms. Tucker's bid to get her sentence commuted to life in prison, just as it denied all 76 requests for clemency made by condemned men since 1993.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal in which she argued that the clemency process in Texas is unconstitutional.
A 30-day reprieve was the only option available to the governor, who could not grant clemency unless the board recommends it. Bush, who took office three years ago, has let 59 condemned men go to their deaths without once commuting or delaying a death sentence.
According to John Green, administrative coordinator for the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole In Utah, the power to commute, or lessen, someone's sentence in Utah rests solely with the Board of Pardons and Parole. The governor only has the power to grant reprieve until the next session of the board. When the board meets again, it considers the governor's request.
According to Green, the board is in session every Monday, Wedneday and Friday. Hence the governor can only spare a person's life for a maximum of two to three days. However, the governor can grant reprieves an infinite number of times.
The Utah Code of Criminal Procedure says the board may consider the commutation of a death sentence only to life without parole.
The board is made up of five full-time and five part-time members. The members of the board serve five year terms and are appointed by the governor. Each year, one of the full-time and part-time members' terms come to an end. The governor can either reappoint the member or choose a new one.
The strongest commutation the board can issue
After the Supreme Court ruled capital punishment constitutional in 1976, Utah was the first state to use the power. Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad on Jan. 17, 1977.
According to Green, there are now 11 inmates on Utah's death row.
Worldwide publicity over Ms. Tucker's case, including pleas for mercy from Pope John Paul II and TV evangelist Pat Robertson, focused on her metamorphosis from a drug-crazed teen-age prostitute to a soft-spoken young woman who would be content with a life sentence.
'If I go home February 3rd, don't take that as God not answering our prayers,' she said in a TV interview aired on Robertson's '700 Club' hours before she was to die. 'If he brings me home February 3rd, it's because in his wisdom, and his sovereignty, he knew that through that something greater is going to be accomplished.'
Another prominent religious leader spoke out on behalf of Tucker. Televangelist Jerry Falwell fielded questions from CNN reporters for nearly an hour before the execution. Falwell said that although he usually strongly supports the death sentence, he felt that Tucker merited mercy because she has undergone a complete conversion and change of heart.
He said that sparing Tucker from death would be a similar action to the kind of selective mercy that God applies to us. He said that the kind of repentance demonstrated by Tucker is different from the attitude displayed by Timothy McVeigh.
Falwell also said he felt uncomfortable executing a woman.
Green said that although the constitution is supposed to be blind to color, religion and gender, jurors or governors who decide the fate of the guilty may make judgments and sentences based on gender.
He said that the ability to consider all the factors in a case and to be able to be flexible is part of what makes the system great. Green gave as an example a wife who has been abused for years and then kills her husband may win a more sympathetic ear than other criminals.
People on both sides of Tucker's case, as well as herself, said her sex should have no bearing on her punishment. But the novelty of executing a woman -- there were only 49 among 3,365 death row inmates nationwide as of Jan. 1 -- prompted hundreds of reporters and photographers to descend on Huntsville, where executions in recent years have become almost routine.
Nationally, since the Supreme Court in 1976 allowed capital punishment to resume, 431 men and one woman have been executed -- 144 of them in Texas, by far the most active death penalty state.
Nationwide, the last woman executed was Velma Barfield, a born-again Christian who was put to death in North Carolina in 1984 for lacing her boyfriend's food with rat poison.
According to Green, Utah has never executed a woman.
In numerous TV interviews, the 5-foot-3 dark-eyed, dark-haired woman portrayed herself as someone who had been rehabilitated and wanted a life sentence so she could help others behind bars.
Robertson, normally a death penalty supporter, backed her plea for mercy because of her religious fervor. 'This thing is vengeance,' he said. 'It makes no sense. This is not the same woman who committed those crimes.'
Ms. Tucker and a companion, Daniel Garrett, were convicted of killing Jerry Lynn Dean, 27, and Deborah Thornton, 32, on June 13, 1983, at Dean's Houston apartment. Ms. Tucker and Garrett had broken in to steal motorcycle parts.
Garrett beat Dean with a hammer, and Ms. Tucker used the 15-pound pickax to stop Dean from making a gurgling sound. Then Ms. Tucker attacked Mrs. Thornton, who had been hiding under a blanket. Ms. Tucker told friends she experienced a sexual thrill each time she swung the ax.
Garrett also got a death sentence but died in prison in 1993 of liver disease.