Owens' Case Cries Out For Mercy

Owens' Case Cries Out For Mercy

The Tennessean

APRIL 21, 2010

Our View

The Tennessee Supreme Court issued a disappointing decision Monday
when it set a Sept. 28 execution date for Gaile Owens, rejecting
attorneys' argument that her death sentence should be changed to life
in prison.

Now the ball is in Gov. Phil Bredesen's hands. While the governor has
allowed the death sentence to be carried out five times since he took
office in January 2003, Owens' case clearly merits a commutation to
life in prison.

"I'm very hopeful that the governor will look at the fact that Gaile
Owens' jury did not know domestic violence was involved in her case,
nor did it know that she had agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a
life sentence,'' said Stacy Rector, executive director of Tennesseans
for an Alternative to the Death Penalty. "She has been remorseful
since coming to prison 23 years ago, a model inmate, from everything
I've heard, and her sentence is disproportionate to similar crimes.

"It doesn't seem that anyone would be served by putting her to death.''

No, it doesn't. And while members of the state's highest court said
Monday that it cannot consider facts outside the court record, it
noted that Bredesen is not constrained by those limitations.

A request for Owens' clemency is said to already have been sent to
Bredesen. Those familiar with the case of the 57-year-old Memphis
woman who was convicted of soliciting the 1985 murder of her husband,
Ronald, say she suffered severe physical, sexual and emotional abuse
from her spouse.

At the time of her trial, Owens did not take the witness stand to
testify in her own defense because, her attorneys said, she wanted to
protect her young sons, both of whom are now grown, from details of
abuse she suffered at the hands of their father.

She did, however, agree to plead guilty to the murder charges, but
the original offer of a life sentence from prosecutors was taken back
because her co-defendant, Sidney Porterfield, also on death row,
wanted to go to trial.

If convicted, Owens would become the first woman to be put to death
by the state of Tennessee since Eve Martin was hanged for murder in
1820.

But a number of people and organizations have come to her aid, urging
Bredesen not to allow the execution.

"The YWCA supports thousands of Middle Tennessee victims of domestic
violence each year, and we never advocate violence as an appropriate
response to an abusive relationship,'' Nancy S. Jones, chairwoman of
the Advocacy Committee of the YWCA Board of Directors in Nashville,
wrote in this newspaper in February. "Instead, we provide counseling,
shelter, support groups, resources — all things that were unavailable
to Gaile in Memphis 26 years ago, when many cities were in the early
stages of recognizing and addressing domestic violence.
"I firmly believe that if Gaile had had access to resources like
these, she wouldn't be on death row.''

Gov. Bredesen should listen to such comments as he considers Owens'
clemency appeal. He should also consider the fact that there have
been several other cases in Tennessee, most recently that of Mary
Winkler, where women killed their husbands because of alleged
domestic violence, but they are not on Tennessee's death row.

In fact, two of these women are now on parole. Owens is not asking
for parole, only that her death sentence be commuted to life in
prison. As a battered wife, she deserves at least that — not to be
put to death.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100421/OPINION01/4210349/1007/OPINION/Editorial%20%20Owens%20%20case%20cries%20out%20for%20mercy?GID=2+yshK3F6ITPrMtOsC8EPtPWCQUMn90K5RyyL1293HY%3D

Gaile Owens' son asks Bredesen to spare DR inmate's life

Gaile Owens' son asks Bredesen to spare death row inmate's life
Stephen Owens says she is remorseful
BY CLAY CAREY • THE TENNESSEAN • APRIL 21, 2010

Stephen Owens walked into the Tennessee Prison for Women last year
and saw his mother for the first time in more than two decades.
She had spent almost 25 years behind bars, awaiting execution for the
murder of her husband, Ronald Owens. She had killed his father, but
Stephen Owens still found the strength to tell her, "I forgive you.''



Tuesday, the 37-year-old Franklin man made a public plea for Gov.
Phil Bredesen to do the same by commuting Gaile K. Owens' death
sentence.

"Mom is extremely remorseful and regretful. She has spent the past 25
years suffering her consequences. She has also spent the past 25
years reforming her life," Stephen Owens said, reading from a
prepared statement at the offices of his mother's attorneys.

Owens, 57, is scheduled to be executed on Sept. 28 for hiring another
man, Sidney Porterfield, to kill her husband in Shelby County in
1985. Her attorneys and supporters have said she was unfairly
sentenced to death because the jury never knew she was a battered
woman looking for a way to escape her abusive marriage. Owens could
not bring herself to tell jurors about the abuse because she wanted
to protect her children from the details, her defenders have said.
Tennessee's Supreme Court ruled Monday that it could not commute her
sentence, and the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear her case.

The state Supreme Court said it could intervene only under
extraordinary, extenuating circumstances, and the new evidence did
not meet that test. The court made it clear that the governor has
more leeway.

"I'm confident after the legislature adjourns he'll turn his
attention to this issue,'' said Owens' attorney George Barrett. "I
think he'll do what he thinks is the right thing."

Lydia Lenker, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Bredesen had
received Owens' clemency petition.

"As he does in each of these situations, the Governor is reviewing
the document but hasn't made a decision on the matter," she said.

Owens would be the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1820.

Since 1980, Barrett said, more than 25 women have been convicted of
killing their husbands or having them killed. "Not a single one of
them except Gaile Owens has received the death sentence," he said.

Assistant Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry, who is working on
Owens' case, said her defense attorneys could have found others to
testify about the abuse, but that did not happen.

Stephen B. Shankman, Owens' first defense attorney, said in a 1991
affidavit that Owens "was extraordinarily remorseful for hiring
someone to kill her husband." Ultimately, Owens wasn't able to pay
Shankman's legal fees, he said, so the court appointed other lawyers
to represent her.

Plea Deal Was Offered

Owens' "most immediate and profound concern was the well-being of her
children," Shankman said. "Ms. Owens was clear. She wanted to plead
guilty and avoid a trial because she didn't want to put her children
and the rest of her family through any more pain."

In a letter dated Jan. 3, 1986, prosecutors offered Owens life in
prison in exchange for a plea of guilty. The offer came with two
stipulations: It had to be accepted that day, and Porterfield had to
agree to a similar offer.
Owens took the offer, but Porterfield insisted on going to trial, so
prosecutors threw out the deal.

"That's an extraordinary injustice," Henry said.

Don Strother, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted Owens 25
years ago, said he couldn't remember the plea agreement. His
signature appears at the bottom of the letter to Owens.

Strother said he had never heard about Owens' abuse.

"It was prosecuted fairly. Everything was done by the book," Strother
said Tuesday. "Hugh Stanton (the district attorney in Memphis at the
time) didn't put up with people in his office engaging in chicanery.
I wouldn't put up with people engaging in chicanery."

Strother said he believed, then and now, that Owens deserved the
death penalty. He said she was tried as a spendthrift whose husband
was preparing to divorce her over financial issues.

This woman went for months shopping around and looking for someone to
kill her husband," Strother said.

Prosecutors told jurors that Owens killed her husband to collect an
insurance policy because she was in financial trouble.

Owens Admits Her Guilt

In a handwritten letter to Bredesen last summer, Owens admitted to
"putting the wheels in motion that resulted in Ron's death."

"The weight of being responsible for the pain of my sons and their
life without a father can choke the breath out of me," she wrote.
"There is not a sentence or any amount of time that would be enough
to end the pain, guilt and shame that I feel."

Bredesen has commuted one death sentence as governor. In 2007, he
changed convicted robber and killer Michael Joe Boyd's sentence from
death to life in prison, citing "grossly inadequate legal
representation" during his post-conviction hearing. Five men have
been executed during Bredesen's time as governor. Four of them asked
for reprieves.

Barrett said he hoped Boyd's case set a precedent that could help Owens.

"The harsh reality is that both of my parents have been absent from
my life," said Stephen Owens. "Sparing my mother's life can change
that reality. … Please do not allow a death sentence to be the legacy
of my family.

"It has taken me more than 20 years to reconcile and find peace," he
said. "I understand it is difficult to comprehend forgiveness on this
level. The only explanation I can offer is through my faith in God.

"There is no justice in taking her life," Stephen Owens said. "There
is no justice in denying the healing power of forgiveness."

Contact Clay Carey at 615-726-5933 or mcarey@tennessean.com

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100421/NEWS03/4210368/-1/RSS05

Gaile Owens supporters begin pitch to get her off Tennessee's death row

Gaile Owens supporters begin pitch to get her off Tennessee's death row

By Richard Locker
Posted April 20, 2010

NASHVILLE – Supporters of Gaile Owens – who faces execution Sept. 28
for the contract murder of her husband -- turned their hopes toward
Gov. Phil Bredesen today with a request to commute her death sentence
to life in prison or release.

Her son spoke publicly for the first time in a press conference held
by his mother’s attorneys and supporters. “My statement today is a
public plea to Gov. Bredesen to spare my mother’s life,” said Stephen
Owens, 37, of Franklin, who visited her last year for the first time
in more than 20 years.

“I looked my mother in the eyes and told her I forgive her. Mom is
extremely remorseful and regretful. She has spent the past 25 years
suffering her consequences. She has also spent the past 25 years
reforming her life.”

The Tennessee Supreme Court on Monday denied Gaile Owens’ request to
vacate her Shelby County death sentence and modify it to life in
imprison, saying that it is lacked the authority to do so and is
bound by evidentiary limitations. It scheduled her execution for 10
p.m. Sept. 28.

But the 2 1/2-page order noted that “The governor is not constrained
by the same evidentiary limitations that guide our decisions,” and
that “accordingly, our decision to decline to issue a certificate of
commutation does not foreclose or affect the governor’s exercise of
his clemency power” under the Tennessee Constitution.

Owens was convicted of hiring Sydney Porterfield to kill her husband,
Ronald Owens, who was beaten to death with a tire iron in their
Bartlett home in 1985.

The press conference at the law office of high-profile Nashville
attorney George Barrett is part of a combined legal and public
relations campaign aimed at saving Owens’ life. Nashville singer-
songwriter Marshall Chapman, and others who have befriended Owens on
weekly volunteer visits at the Tennessee Prison for Women were
present, along with Asst. Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry and
the defendant’s son. Husband and wife volunteers Gene and Pat
Williams have created a website, www.friendsofgaile.com, to help
build support for a gubernatorial commutation.

“We’re here for two reasons. One, the unfairness of the treatment of
Ms. Owens by the judicial system in this state, and two, the
unfairness of the sentence given to her,” Barrett said.

“There have been 26 women tried and convicted in Tennessee for either
killing or arranging the killing of their spouse and not a single one
of them until Gaile Owens received the death penalty. She agreed to
plead guilty prior to her trial in Memphis and was forbid from doing
so by a quirk in the judicial system because her co-defendant Mr.
Porterfield would not plead guilty. Mr. Porterfield is now on death
row claiming mental retardation since birth.

“Secondly we’re here because of proportionality of the sentence given
to her,” Barrett continued. “She’s a battered woman. She has battered
woman syndrome. That issue has never been tried before any court
despite an abundance of evidence. We think this is an ideal situation
for the governor to use his constitutional powers to grant commutation.”

Henry, who is Owens’ post conviction attorney, told reporters that
she’s been doing death penalty work for 20 years “and the Gaile Owens
case stands apart from every other case I’ve been involved in as an
attorney. Ms. Owens is the only inmate in this country that I’ve been
able to find who accepted a plea offer of life in prison and yet
ended up sentenced to death.

“That’s an extraordinary injustice in this case and one that does not
apply to any other inmate in this country, male or female.”

Barrett said he has not discussed the case directly with Bredesen but
with the governor’s legal counsel. Barrett said he expects the
governor to turn his attention to the commutation request after the
state legislature adjourns, probably next month.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/apr/20/gaile-owens-supporters-begin-pitch-get-her-tenness/

Son fighting for Mom Gaile Owens

Stephan is fighting for his mother. http://www.wsmv.com/news/23208856/detail.html

Supreme Court sets execution date for death row inmate Gaile Owens

Supreme Court sets
execution date for death row
inmate Gaile Owens

By Clay Carey • THE TENNESSEAN • April 19,
2010

The Tennessee Supreme Court has set an execution
date for Gaile K. Owens, one of two women on the
state’s Death Row.

Owens, 57, will be put to death at 10 p.m. on Sept.
28, according to an order issued by the court today.

She was given the death penalty for soliciting the
1985 murder of husband Ronald Owens.

Owens’ attorneys had filed paperwork asking that
her sentence be commuted to life in prison. If she is
put to death later this year, she will be the first
woman executed by the state since 1820.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100419/NEWS03/100419065/-1/WORKAROUND01

Politics | 03/16/2010 12:00 am

http://www.wowowow.com/politics/gaile-owens-tennessee-supreme-court-death-penalty-justice-system-454337

Hasn't Death Row Inmate Gaile Owens Suffered Enough?

By Andrew Belonsky

Gaile Owens

Yes, the 57-year-old maintains that she called off the "hit," and Henry explains that Owens "accepts her responsibility for setting the wheels in motion that led to her husband’s death and knows that her actions made her guilty of accessory before the fact to first-degree murder." Porterfield, meanwhile, has employed a different tactic: He’s claiming to be mentally retarded and therefore ineligible for execution.

One of the most important aspects of the Owens case revolves around her abuse — abuse of which the jury never heard. Though courts today regularly take "battered woman syndrome" into account, the condition hadn’t yet been codified – or, at least, recognized – back in the 1980s. And it’s that argument that should be of utmost importance to the Tennessee Supreme Court. People, regardless of gender, can only take so much abuse before they snap. Clearly Owens had reached a tipping point. Whether she deserves more or less blame than Porterfield remains a matter of debate, but this woman, now a grandmother, certainly deserves more than a death suitable for the nation’s most egregious criminals.

Rather than subjecting her children to the horrors she had endured, Owens ... pleaded guilty straightaway, hoping to receive life imprisonment.

The Court hasn’t indicated which way it will rule, but as Owens’s story gains more attention – and online support – we’re hoping the justices give her what she deserves: a commuted sentence that allows her more time with her family and the friends she’s made in prison.

If you want to learn more about Owens’s case, head over to the Friends of Gaile website, where you can find information on which authorities to contact to fight for a commutation of Owens’s death sentence.

Lion & the Lamb Gaile Owens, law & order, & Honest Abe by George Hartz

LION AND THE LAMB: Gaile Owens, law and order, and Honest AbeBy George Hartz / Chronicle contributor
Gaile Owens is a lady. More than that, she is a sensitive lady. Learning of her husband's adultery, she was devastated. Her husband, rather than being repentant of his unfaithful conduct, instead felt trapped in his marriage and became abusive. In 1986, this sensitive lady reacted in a way she has been regretting ever since. She hired a man to kill her husband. She pleaded guilty to the murder, believing that she would be sentenced to life in prison. Instead, the verdict was the death penalty.

Unfortunately, Gaile Owens lives in Tennessee, where successful prosecutors move up the ranks and some become judges and some even become "Law and Order" governors.

Law and order is always a successful theme for candidates seeking election, but it gives one cause to wonder. Fair laws are something to which we can aspire, but keeping order? Well, the Nazis were very good at that. Rogue nations take all sorts of violent measures to keep order. Eventually all such measures fail. Is there any order in Iran today? What we really need is law and justice.

But back to the case of Gaile Owens: except for the fact that she has confessed her guilt and shown remorse, her case is not unlike several other persons on death row who have lost the battle for life.

First, there is inadequate defense. Like all executions before her, the candidates were poor and could not afford a competent attorney. And then there are zealous prosecutors who have honed their skills. They know how to control the jury from beginning to end. They know how to mute eye witnesses and bring pressure on other witnesses to reverse testimony in exchange for immunity. In many cases, the reversed testimony comes from an incarcerated inmate with nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Most of all, they are experts on technicalities. They know how to keep evidence from the eyes and ears of the jury.

Before Gail was accused, she was abused. She was the victim of an unfaithful husband. But none of this part of her story was allowed to be viewed by the jury.

Yes, Gaile Owens is a victim of a broken justice system based on retaliation and capital punishment. Unlike other civilized nations who have abandoned the death penalty, we see no contradiction in making our state an instrument of retribution.

Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?

The qualities of mercy, forgiveness and rehabilitation have been drained out of our justice system.

I often think of the great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln. Today, Republicans take pride in his historical presence, as indeed they should. There was a forgiveness factor in this man. He was moved by appeals for mercy, and with a magnimous spirit along with his executive power, he saved thousands of lives. It is a fact that of all sentences of death imposed on Union soldiers for sleeping at post, not one was approved by Lincoln.

What is less known is that Lincoln issued 331clemency warrants to individuals convicted in civil courts. It seems sad that standard bearers of his party today cannot embrace this part of his nature.

Gaile Owens may well be an example of the true qualities of the people of Tennessee. The state has requested that the state Supreme Court set the date for the execution of Gaile Owens. We wait and see.

Thinktrain by Rob Robinson/Gaile Owens doesn't deserve to die

If it’s OK for Mary Winkler to live as a free citizen and have custody of her kids, it isn’t OK for Gaile Owens to be executed by the state.
Owens is the only inmate in Tennessee prison history to face execution after accepting a prosecutor’s offer to plead guilty with a life sentence.
Though there is little doubt that Owens was severely abused by her husband, the jurors who decided her fate never knew about it. Owens never testified and hasn’t sought publicity for her plight, out of respect for her children. She even declined to appear on Oprah when approached by the program. Owens is remorseful for her crime and from the outset pled guilty. She signed a plea agreement to serve a life sentence, which the prosecution refused to accept when her co-defendant rejected the same offer.
In my opinion, this isn’t someone who deserves to die for her crimes, but my point of view isn’t the one that matters at this point. Governor Bredesen, please do the just and equitable thing and let Owens live.

Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry will discuss the case of Gaile K. Owens

The Case of Gaile Owens, a talk by Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry

Date:	Thursday, March 18, 2010
Time:	12:00pm - 1:00pm
Location:	Renaissance Room, Vanderbilt Law School, 131 21st Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37203

Please consider coming to hear Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry discuss Gaile's case at Vanderbilt Law School on March 18.

Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry will discuss the case of Gaile K. Owens, one of two women on Tennessee's Death Row.

Owens was arrested in 1985 and later convicted for hiring a man to kill her husband, Ronald Owens. Her attorney, George Barrett '57, and two federal public defenders, including Henry, have filed a formal plea asking Gov. Phil Bredesen to commute her sentence to life in prison.

Woman On Death Row Asks For Mercy

Gaile Owens, Who Hired Husband's Killer, Says She Was Battered Wife

POSTED: 7:00 pm CST February 16, 2010
UPDATED: 8:45 am CST February 17, 2010

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The first woman on Tennessee's death row is asking the state Supreme Court for mercy because she says she suffered from "battered-wife syndrome."

However, prosecutors said Gaile Owens prevented her own lawyers from making that argument at her trial.

The state has asked the court to set a date for Owens' execution after she hired someone to kill her husband in 1986. Owens wants the sentence reduced to life in prison.

In a response filed by the state Tuesday, prosecutors said Owens refused to undergo the mental evaluation her defense requested to prove a battered wife defense.

She also refused to testify in either the guilt phase or the penalty phase.

http://www.wsmv.com/news/22585194/detail.html

I desperately want to fight for my mother's life

From Stephen`s blog :

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Gaile Owens

I desperately want to fight for my mother's life. Our relationship is alive and I can only plea to others not to take this away from me now.

I am uncertain of the path that God is leading me on but I can tell you that He is showing up every day and I can see and feel His presence in the people and events unfolding around me. I know the only way I ever would have believed that my mother had changed and reformed her life was to see the evidence face to face. God has revealed this proof and continues to reveal His work to me every time I see her. It is so difficult for me to describe in words. It is real. It is powerful. It is amazing. It is love. It is peace. It is undeniable.

Posted by Stephen Owens at 3:23 PM

Deeper Look Shows Even More Cases of Unequal Justice

Deeper Look Shows Even More Cases of Unequal Justice

That's the title of John Seigenthaler's followup article in the Sunday edition of the Tennessean. LINK

A news story published here Dec. 20 under my byline reported critically on the striking differences in sentences that state judges and juries gave three Tennessee women convicted of killing their abusive husbands.

Further research makes it clear that the article failed to deal in adequate depth with the question of whether penalties handed down in such cases by Tennessee courts reflect what Judge Richard S. Arnold of the U.S. Court of Appeals called "the reality and perception of equal justice."

A review of the disparate levels of punishment the courts dispensed in these and six similar cases over the last quarter-century makes the point:

• Two of the nine cases resulted in the killers being granted full probation — one after a new trial and the other after 67 days in a mental health facility.

• One of the cases resulted in a life sentence being commuted to 18 months and probation.

• Another resulted in a prison term of 15 years and early parole.

• Four of the cases resulted in life sentences. Two of these women were freed on parole; the others are entitled to parole hearings.

• Only one woman was sentenced to death. Gaile Owens' court appeals were exhausted last month, and the Tennessee Supreme Court soon will set the date for her death.

In all nine cases, the murders were brutal. In four of them, wives arranged for hit men to kill their husbands. In all but one of the cases, defense lawyers, either during trial or on appeal, presented evidence that the wives had endured physical or emotional abuse from their spouses. In at least half the cases, defense lawyers sought to prove that the killers suffered from battered woman syndrome — a condition the courts have defined as "a female who is the victim of consistent, severe domestic violence."

David Raybin, a criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor — who convicted the killer in one of the nine cases and successfully defended the killer in another — believes that the pattern of inconsistent sentencing may have resulted from the failure of some defense lawyers to effectively present battered woman syndrome testimony. Court records seem to document that.

Seigenthaler's original article, "The uneven hand of justice in TN murders," was noted here last month.

Thoughts on justice - Gaile Owens

Thoughts on justice

John Seigenthaler :

http://www.friendsofgaile.com/news/Seigenthaler-Deeper%20look,unequal%20justice_Tennessean_Jan.%2010,%202010.pdf

Support system makes difference for victims

Support system makes difference for victims

By Mary Jones • February 28, 2010

Tennessee Voices

One day, out of the blue, I was grabbed from behind and choked by my husband. In the seconds that it took to realize what he was doing to me, I also thought this was my last breath. What will happen to my children? Will anybody find my body? Is this real?

Domestic violence showed its ugly face in my marriage long before I recognized it as such. I dismissed my husband's rude, selfish and demeaning behavior as just having a bad day. This behavior became a way of life in our relationship. I never understood why or what I had done to make him behave this way. Even in asking, I was made to feel stupid for not realizing that it was me who made him do the things he did. I could never live up to his standards.

My husband was an abuser of drugs and alcohol and did not waste any time after the marriage vows to show his true colors. His emotional and verbal abuse stripped me of my own existence. My young children watched and heard us. When I looked into my children's eyes and saw that they were looking for answers from me, I knew that I had to take action. It was not until about six months after one particularly dangerous episode that I found the last bit of self-esteem that I still held onto and left him.

We left when he was not home. We ran with the mere clothes on our backs, no money in our pockets and my heart in my throat. I had one purpose: to get my children to safety.

Thankfully, I had options

I have a lot in common with Gaile Owens. We are both mothers. We are both victims of domestic violence. We both endured horrors that no one should have to endure. Like Gaile, I, too, feared involving my family in my situation. Yet, unfortunately for Gaile, that is where the similarities end.

When I made up my mind to leave my husband, I called the YWCA's domestic violence crisis line. It was the voice on the other end that ultimately saved my life and the lives of my children.

In 1985 in Memphis, Gaile Owens did not know that help was available because the services were limited, and even those were not well-publicized. The first services in the Memphis area for abused women were offered in 1979 in the form of a crisis line — listed in the phone book under "Wife Abuse" — that operated only four hours a day. Today, the YWCA Nashville's crisis line is available around the clock.

In 1985 in Memphis, Gaile felt she had nowhere to turn. Had a support system for domestic violence victims been well-established, perhaps Gaile today would not be sitting on death row for killing her husband.

Thanks to the YWCA, I am living a violence-free life. I now have hope. I keep my children safe. Together, we are getting stronger every day.

If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, please get help. Call the YWCA Crisis & Information Line at 615-242-1199 or 800- 334-4628. It is free and confidential, 24 hours a day.

Battered woman's syndrome is real. Domestic violence is real. The fear for your life is real. And Gaile Owens is proof of how real it can be.

Mary Jones of Nashville is a domestic violence survivor and a volunteer with the YWCA of Nashville and Middle Tennessee.

Does battered woman deserve execution?

By Nancy S. Jones • February 28, 2010

Tennessee Voices

I don't know Gaile Owens, but I feel like I do. At the YWCA we work with some women like Gaile who suffer from trauma as severe as battered woman syndrome, a serious mental disorder that mental health professionals and courts have recognized in women who are the victims of consistent, severe domestic violence.

Out of respect for Gaile, who is now awaiting an execution date for arranging the 1984 murder of her abusive husband, I am not going to share the horrid details of how she suffered. She never testified in her own defense in order to protect her children from those details, and I will honor her silence.

Suffice it to say that Gaile has been diagnosed with battered woman syndrome, according to court documents and a recent thorough assessment by Jan Vogelsang, a licensed clinical social worker with almost 30 years of experience in this area. YWCA domestic violence staff describe the symptoms of battered woman syndrome as a high level of anxiety that interrupts normal life, repeated reliving of painful abusive episodes, inability to develop and maintain healthy relationships, and an acute sense of isolation. Does this disorder excuse her criminal conduct? Absolutely not.

Help not available back then

The YWCA supports thousands of Middle Tennessee victims of domestic violence each year, and we never advocate violence as an appropriate response to an abusive relationship. Instead, we provide counseling, shelter, support groups, resources — all things that were unavailable to Gaile in Memphis 26 years ago, when many cities were in the early stages of recognizing and addressing domestic violence.

I firmly believe that if Gaile had had access to resources like these in 1984, she wouldn't be on death row. We couldn't be there to help her then, but we can help her now.

Because of our work in domestic violence in Middle Tennessee, members of the YWCA board of directors have been moved to speak out on behalf of Gaile. In doing so, we take no position on the appropriateness of the death penalty as a punishment for criminal conduct. We do question, however, whether Gaile's case rises to the level of a capital crime, given the outcome of comparable cases that resulted in probation or early parole.

Gaile has never denied her guilt. She isn't asking for a pardon. Her attorneys are asking for commutation of her sentence to life in prison, which was the original deal she arranged with the prosecutor 25 years ago. Unless the Tennessee Supreme Court or Gov. Phil Bredesen provides relief from the death sentence, we will be executing a battered woman.

Nancy S. Jones is chairwoman, Advocacy Committee, YWCA Board of Directors in Nashville.

Tennessee Voices - Gaile Owens

Support system makes difference for victims

http://www.friendsofgaile.com/news/Does%20battered%20woman%20deserve%20execution.pdf

Does battered woman deserve execution?

Does battered woman deserve execution?


http://www.friendsofgaile.com/news/Support%20system%20makes%20difference%20for%20victims.pdf

Battered woman's life is in Bredesen's hands

THE TENNESSEAN
Caitlin O'Leary

February 28, 2010

Gov. Phil Bredesen holds the life of a battered
woman in his hands. The state will execute Gaile
Kirksey Owens, 57, by lethal injection unless the
governor commutes her sentence to life in prison.

Gaile is a victim of severe domestic violence who
was arrested in 1985, and later convicted, for hiring
a man to kill her abusive husband, Ronald Owens.

After exhausting her appeals, her lawyer and two
public defenders have filed a formal plea asking
Gov. Bredesen to commute her sentence to life in
prison.
Though she was diagnosed with battered woman’s
syndrome, Gaile’s jurors never heard about the
physical, emotional and sexual abuse she endured
from her husband.

Among nine comparable cases over the past 25
years: two defendants are serving life sentences and
six have received probation or early parole, while
only Gaile is facing death. Unless Gov. Bredesen
commutes Gaile’s sentence, she will be the first
woman executed by the state since 1820.

Not only were there very few, if any, resources for a
battered woman in the early ’80s, but a woman who
has suffered severe and consistent abuse is not in a
competent state of mind. Gov. Phil Bredesen should
commute Gaile Owens’ sentence to life in prison and
save the state from executing a battered woman.

www.tennessean.com

Woman On Death Row Asks For Mercy - Nashville News Story - WSMV Nashville

Woman On Death Row Asks For Mercy - Nashville News Story - WSMV Nashville

Gaile Owens' attorneys ask TN high court to commute death sentence

By Kate Howard
THE TENNESSEAN

Attorneys for death row inmate Gaile Owens have asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to commute her death sentence, saying her case presents unique circumstances that warrant the rare move.

Owens, 57, was given the death penalty by a jury for soliciting the 1985 murder of her husband, Ronald Owens. She hired Sidney Porterfield, who beat Owens to death. Porterfield is also on death row.

Owens' attorneys argued in briefs filed with the Tennessee Supreme Court Friday that Owens punishment should be commuted to a life sentence because she is the only inmate who is on death row after agreeing to a plea bargain for a life sentence, and no jury ever heard the details of abuse she alleges that she endured from her husband.

The woman said she was sexually and emotionally abused by her husband, but she never took the stand because she wanted to protect her sons from the details. She also agreed to plead guilty to avoid a trial, but the prosecutor took the offer off the table after Porterfield, her co-defendant, refused to also plead guilty. The judge refused to try their cases separately.

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear Owens' appeal, leaving
her to appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court or the governor.

"I have, pending with the governor, a petition for commutation which I believe he will address after the Tennessee Supreme Court has acted on the attorney general's motion for an execution date,'' said Nashville attorney George Barrett in a statement. "Otherwise, we will be executing a battered woman. That would be a first for Tennessee.''

The attorneys also pointed out that Owens is the only woman in the state of Tennessee who got a death sentence for the death of her husband.

Owens is one of two women on death row in the state, and would be the first woman executed here since the early 1900s.

Attorneys urge high court to commute death sentence

NASHVILLE (AP) — Attorneys for death row inmate Gaile Owens on Friday asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to commute her sentence to life in prison. Alternately, the request asks the court to recommend Gov. Phil Bredesen commute the sentence.

The request is in response to the attorney general's motion to set an execution date, Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry said.

The attorneys said Owens, 57, was the victim of severe domestic abuse and the court never heard the evidence of that abuse.

Owens was convicted in Shelby County in 1986 of hiring Sidney Porterfield to kill her husband.

Deeper look shows even more cases of unequal justice

January 10, 2010


Owens on death row while others are free

By John Seigenthaler

A news story published here Dec. 20 under my byline reported critically on the http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091220/NEWS03/912200335/The-uneven-hand-of-justice-in-TN-murders">striking differences in sentences that state judges and juries gave three Tennessee women convicted of killing their abusive husbands.

Further research makes it clear that the article failed to deal in adequate depth with the question of whether penalties handed down in such cases by Tennessee courts reflect what Judge Richard S. Arnold of the U.S. Court of Appeals called "the reality and perception of equal justice."

A review of the disparate levels of punishment the courts dispensed in these and six similar cases over the last quarter-century makes the point:

• Two of the nine cases resulted in the killers being granted full probation — one after a new trial and the other after 67 days in a mental health facility.

• One of the cases resulted in a life sentence being commuted to 18 months and probation.

• Another resulted in a prison term of 15 years and early parole.

• Four of the cases resulted in life sentences. Two of these women were freed on parole; the others are entitled to parole hearings.

• Only one woman was sentenced to death. Gaile Owens' court appeals were exhausted last month, and the Tennessee Supreme Court soon will set the date for her death.

In all nine cases, the murders were brutal. In four of them, wives arranged for hit men to kill their husbands. In all but one of the cases, defense lawyers, either during trial or on appeal, presented evidence that the wives had endured physical or emotional abuse from their spouses. In at least half the cases, defense lawyers sought to prove that the killers suffered from battered woman syndrome — a condition the courts have defined as "a female who is the victim of consistent, severe domestic violence."

David Raybin, a criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor — who convicted the killer in one of the nine cases and successfully defended the killer in another — believes that the pattern of inconsistent sentencing may have resulted from the failure of some defense lawyers to effectively present battered woman syndrome testimony. Court records seem to document that.

"If the lawyer can demonstrate that the defendant was a battered woman, it helps the jurors understand why she acted as she did," Raybin said. "Evidence that a defendant has suffered from an abusive relationship can be a strong mitigating factor in the minds of jurors when they consider punishment."

Eight cases, various results

Here is a chronological review of the eight cases that resulted in sentences less severe than the death penalty:

• 1981: Dr. Rose Horne Leaphart, a practicing physician in Nashville, was convicted of paying $10,000 to Gary Carlton Jackson and Michael Miller Jackson to kill her husband, Bobby, a dental student at Meharry Medical College. Raybin prosecuted, and Mike Engle, a Metro public defender, represented Dr. Leaphart. A witness told jurors that Leaphart admitted that she was present when the two hit men beat her husband to death with a baseball bat. She accompanied the killers as they stuffed the victim's body in the trunk of his car. The body was discovered two months later in an Atlanta tow-in lot.

Leaphart's battered woman defense included testimony that she had suffered two years of marriage during which her husband had beaten her, broken her arm, blacked her eyes and forced her to submit to drug injections. There was psychological testimony that she fit the profile of a victim of battered woman syndrome.

An appeals court noted that the jury, because of the testimony supporting her battered wife claim, was "somewhat sympathetic" and gave her a "near-minimum" 15-year sentence. Dr. Leaphart has since been paroled and has regained her license to practice medicine.

• 1982: Barbara Tipton operated the Bi-Lo Diner in Grainger County with her husband, Ronald, to whom she had been married for 18 years. On July 5, Ronald Tipton's body was found in his wrecked car on a rural county road. He had died from a shotgun blast to the neck.

His wife was convicted of accessory to murder after Charles Brooks, a local man with whom she had a sexual relationship, confessed that she had enticed him to murder her spouse, promising to share $400,000 in life insurance.

Barbara Tipton testified that in the months before he was murdered, her husband had sexually abused her. Her lawyers, however, did not present a battered woman syndrome defense. She and Brooks were sentenced to life in prison. Released on parole, she has since died.

• 1982: Evelyn Mosher was at a rock concert in Chattanooga on the night her husband, Robert, was slain at their Signal Mountain home. An assailant used a sheet of plastic to suffocate him. Evelyn Mosher collected $200,000 in life insurance.

It was not until 1985 that police, suspecting her of trafficking in drugs, raided her home and found evidence linking her to Bobby Wilcoxson, whom she had employed as the hit man. Wilcoxson, convicted and sentenced to death for Robert's murder, died in prison after his death sentence was set aside. Evelyn Mosher, sentenced to life for first-degree murder, is currently eligible for parole.

• 1982: Kathryn England drugged her abusive husband, then shot and killed him while he slept. She fired the fatal rifle shot from an upstairs room through a hole she had created in their bedroom ceiling.

Her lawyers presented evidence that she had been physically and sexually abused by her husband. Still, she was convicted and sentenced to serve a life sentence. In prison, she contracted breast cancer. Because of her illness, Gov. Lamar Alexander commuted her sentence to the 18 months she had served. Freed in 1984, she remarried and later died.

• 1985: Frances Blaylock was separated from her husband, Roy Lee Blaylock, a McMinn County farmer, when he was shot to death by Chris Smith, a former high school classmate of one of the Blaylock's daughters. After firing the fatal shotgun blast, Smith, by agreement with Frances Blaylock, took $5,000 from the victim's wallet. The murder occurred after a stormy marriage of 25 years marked by drunken, violent attacks by the husband.

At trial, Blaylock's lawyers sought to put on evidence from a psychologist that she suffered from battered woman syndrome, but the trial judge limited testimony to the question of whether Frances Blaylock was sane. Both Blaylock and Smith were convicted of first-degree murder. She is now free on parole.

• 1987: Deborah Mae Furlough murdered her husband, Tim, as he drank beer beside a creek in Macon County. She shot him first with a rifle, then with a pistol. The killing followed an argument that interrupted a drive from Adolphus, Ky., to Nashville. A witness to the murder, Mary Sue Scott, a family friend, helped her bury the body in a nearby sandbar. Tim's corpse was discovered two days later by fishermen.

At trial, Furlough testified that she had endured a violent marriage during which her husband had put a knife to her throat, tried to smother her with a pillow and threatened her with a hammer, which he used to sexually abuse her. She killed her husband, she stated, after he repeatedly told her he was going to have sex with their infant daughter.

She was convicted of first-degree murder in 1988 and has since been freed on parole.

• 1990: Laurie Zimmerman and her husband, Mark, operated a marketing business from their Murfreesboro home. There, they argued bitterly one night over whether the husband would take their 2-year-old son from the house. The argument ended when Laurie fatally stabbed Mark with a butcher knife. His blood-alcohol level at death indicated that he was intoxicated.

Zimmerman was tried twice. The first case resulted in her conviction for second-degree murder with a 15-year prison term. During that trial, her two lawyers sharply disagreed over a defense strategy. One of them, Herb Rich, favored a battered woman syndrome defense and told jurors that Zimmerman and other witnesses would testify that she was an abused wife. David Vincent, Zimmerman's lead lawyer, disagreed and convinced her not to take the stand in her own defense.

Her jury heard nothing of the fact that on the day before the fatal argument Laurie Zimmerman had sought a court order protecting her from drunken spousal assaults. No psychological expert was called to support a battered woman defense. Her medical doctor was not called to document evidence of physical assaults.

After her conviction, Zimmerman hired David Raybin, who won for her a motion for a new trial. Zimmerman testified in the second case, and a psychologist asserted that she was a victim of battered woman syndrome. The jury agreed. She was found guilty of negligent homicide, and the judge granted her full probation. She moved out of state and remarried.

• 2006: Mary Winkler, the wife of an ordained minister, shot her husband, Matthew, in the back while he was still in bed. The pellets severed his spine. She fled the residence with their three young daughters and drove to Alabama, where she was apprehended by police.

Her lawyers defended her on the grounds that she was a battered wife, emotionally and sexually abused by Matthew and constantly harassed by him as a spendthrift. Following a voluntary manslaughter conviction, the judge granted her probation and freed her after she spent 67 days in a mental health facility. She has regained custody of her three children and lives in McMinnville.

Death sentence for Owens

Gaile Owens faces a death sentence even though many aspects of her case are identical to those of the eight other women.

She, too, hired a killer, Sidney Porterfield, who beat her husband to death with a tire iron in Memphis in 1985. Her lawyers initially planned to present a battered woman defense, then abandoned that course after the judge limited the statement of a professional psychologist to whether Owens was sane. That same psychologist, Dr. Lynne Zager, who was prepared to appear as a battered woman witness for Owens, testified 20 years later for Mary Winkler. Owens' jurors heard not a word about the physical, emotional and sexual abuse she had endured. She had agreed to plead guilty in return for a life sentence — but the district attorney would not accept that plea unless Porterfield, the hit man, entered the same plea. Porterfield is appealing his capital conviction on grounds that he is mentally impaired.

Owens' death would be Tennessee's sixth execution since 2000. She would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in 190 years.

As the state Supreme Court considers an early death date, Owens' lawyer, George Barrett, is preparing to petition Gov. Phil Bredesen to commute her sentence from death to life imprisonment. The petition will question whether Owens' sentence reflects equal justice under the law.

First Lady of Tennessee

The First Lady of Tennessee, Andrea Conte,  lists victims rights as one of her top priorities and has received an award from the U.S. Attorney General for her work in victims rights.

This is the Prison that Houses Gail Owens

Inmate Gaile Owens doesn't deserve death

Thank you to Frank Nolan for the letter he wrote on behalf of Gaile Owens, and a special thank you to John Seigenthaler for all he has done — for using his name, his time and his abilities to bring to the public's attention the sad story of Gaile Owens, an inmate on death row ("The uneven hand of justice," Dec. 20). We can only hope and pray the governor will have mercy on Gaile and that justice will at last prevail.

I know Gaile personally. I'm one of many volunteers at the Tennessee Prison for Women who have had the privilege of getting to know her. We love her dearly and pray with her and for her every chance we have. Her story is one of many women who have suffered battered women's syndrome, a condition, as Mr. Seigenthaler reported, that courts have recognized as "a female who is the victim of consistent, severe domestic violence." Most often, the women want to protect their young children from knowing the truth about their dads, and they seldom have the money for adequate legal representation. Gaile Owens does not deserve to die; in fact, she does not deserve the many years she has already spent on death row. There's so much more to her life ... the positive influence she can continue to have with other women if given the opportunity.

Gov. Bredesen, please make the right decision.

Mary Dalton, Nashville 37221

ARBITRARINESS: Different Outcomes in Similar Murder Cases in Tennessee

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/arbitrariness-different-outcomes-similar-murder-cases-tennessee

ARBITRARINESS: Different Outcomes in Similar Murder Cases in Tennessee

Posted: December 31, 2009

in Arbitrariness What's New Women

Gaile Owens and Mary Winkler are two women who committed similar crimes under similar circumstances in Tennessee. Both women suffered from abuse from the spouses they killed, and both were examined by the same psychologist, twenty years apart. The psychologist said both women suffered from battered woman's syndrome. Mary Winkler confronted her husband with a shotgun and shot him in the back in 2006. Gaile Owens hired a stranger to kill her husband. Winkler was indicted for first-degree murder, convicted of voluntary manslaughter and served about two months in a mental health facility. She is now free and has custody of her children. Owens is on death row, awaiting execution by lethal injection.

According to an article by John Seigenthaler in the Tennessean, "The dramatic difference in the sentences received by Winkler and Owens relates directly to the manner in which the two cases were tried, how their separate teams of lawyers handled their cases and how two different judges dealt with their 'battered woman' defenses." Winkler testified on her own behalf regarding the abuse she suffered, while Owens did not take the stand in order to protect her children from hearing the details of her abuse. Winkler was represented by experienced criminal lawyers, whose expenses were paid by her friends. Owens, on the other hand, had trouble finding legal representation. Her first lawyer withdrew from the case because she could not pay him. Perhaps the starkest difference between the two cases were the women's pleas. Winkler pled not guilty on the basis that she was a battered wife. Owens accepted the prosecutor's plea deal in return for a life sentence, but the prosecutor subsequently refused to accept the agreement when Owens's co-defendant would not accept the same plea. They were tried and sentenced to death together.

(J. Seigenthaler, "The uneven hand of justice in TN murders," The Tennessean, December 20, 2009). Read about Women and the Death Penalty. See also Arbitrariness.

The uneven hand of justice in TN murders

The uneven hand of justice in TN murders

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091220/NEWS03/912200335/The-uneven-hand-of-justice-in-TN-murders

Comparison of similar crimes leaves you wondering: Why is Gaile Owens facing execution?

By John Seigenthaler • December 20, 2009

John Seigenthaler is chairman emeritus of The Tennessean and founded the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University. He is former editor and publisher of The Tennessean.

There was no obvious link between the two recent national headlines

The other read: "Woman on death row loses her last appeal."

There are many striking factual similarities — and one stark difference — in the tragic stories of Mary Winkler and Gaile Owens, two Tennessee women who killed their abusive husbands 20 years apart.

Court documents in the separate cases recite the similarities:

• Both women, raised as fundamentalist Christians, suffered severe physical, sexual and emotional abuse from the spouses they killed.

• Both had small children — Winkler three daughters and Owens two sons — all younger than 12 at the time of the murders.

• Both of them were examined — some 20 years apart — by the same psychologist, Dr. Lynne Zager of Memphis, who said that both suffered from battered woman's syndrome — a condition that courts have recognized as "a female who is the victim of consistent, severe domestic violence."

• Both had concealed from relatives and close friends the suffering they endured at the hands of their husbands; both minimized the abuse when first questioned by police.

• Both were in financially troubled marriages and constantly were blamed by their husbands for being "spendthrift wives." Winkler had kited checks and argued with her husband about money the night before she killed him. Owens had stolen money from her employer, a doctor.

• Both women confessed when questioned by police, and both told the officers they blamed themselves for problems in their marriages.

• In both cases, the spousal abuse included lurid sexual details. In Owens' case, the sexual encounters were more violent and also involved her husband's extramarital affairs.

Mary Winkler's husband, Matthew, was a Church of Christ minister in Selmer in West Tennessee. In 2006, while he was in bed, she confronted him with a shotgun in an effort to discuss their marriage. With her children in the house, she shot him in the back, shattering his spine. Without calling 911, she left him to bleed to death while she drove with her daughters toward an Alabama beach.



Gaile Owens' husband, Ronald, was a nursing supervisor at Baptist Hospital in Memphis. He was beaten to death with a tire iron in 1985 by Sidney Porterfield, a complete stranger Gaile Owens hired on the streets of Memphis. He was never paid. Porterfield is on death row, and his most recent appeal asserts that he is mentally challenged.



Both women were invited at different times to tell their stories on Oprah Winfrey's show. Winkler did so. Owens declined.
The court documents also recite the stark difference in the two killings:

Mary Freeman Winkler, 36, indicted on charges of first-degree murder and convicted of voluntary manslaughter, served 67 days in a mental health facility after conviction and is now free. She has custody of her children and lives in McMinnville.

Gaile Kirksey Owens, 57, is due to be executed by lethal injection on death row at Tennessee State Prison. The state Supreme Court will soon set the date. Owens, who works as a clerk in the prison, would be the first woman executed by the state since Eve Martin, found guilty of murder, was hanged in 1820.

Judges, lawyers played part in differences
The dramatic difference in the sentences received by Winkler and Owens relates directly to the manner in which the two cases were tried, how their separate teams of lawyers handled their cases and how two different judges dealt with their "battered woman" defenses.

Winkler testified personally about the abuse she suffered. Her jury heard from her that she was subjected to mental and sexual abuse, forced by Matthew to watch pornographic films and required to wear seductive attire before having relations. The jurors also heard that she was required to engage in oral sex, which she believed to be "abnormal."

Owens did not take the witness stand in her own defense, so her jury did not hear her battered woman testimony nor about her spouse's cheating with a nurse who was his lover. Documents filed in her appeal detail the physical and emotional abuse that began on her wedding night and continued during marriage.

At the time of trial, Owens told her lawyers she would not testify in her own defense because she wanted to protect her young sons from the details of the sexual and emotional abuse she suffered from their father. Her lawyers say it is for this reason that she has consistently declined requests to tell her story to national news interviewers. The court documents disclose that the abuse included sexual penetration with objects that included a wine bottle and a marijuana pipe. Owens' husband accused her of not properly using birth control pills to prevent pregnancy. Just before the birth of their second son, as a result of rough sex, she suffered a torn

During a pre-trial motion, Emmons, in seeking help from psychologists, admitted that he knew little about the theory of battered woman syndrome. Judge McCartie told him to "school yourself, . . . either get into the books or talk to psychiatrists." Emmons withdrew from the case 30 days before trial, replaced by another Memphis lawyer, Brett Stein. At trial, Stein and Marty abandoned their battered woman defense and Owens' jurors heard not a word about the abuse she suffered. Two federal public defenders, Gretchen Swift and Kelley Henry, took over her appeal and submitted the first credible evidence that she was subjected to spousal abuse.

The clearest dichotomy between Owens' trial and Winkler's was related to their pleas. Winkler's jurors heard that she was "not guilty" on the grounds that she was a battered wife. Owens tried to plead guilty.

Expressing deep remorse for her actions, she told her lawyers she wanted to accept the prosecutor's offer: a guilty plea in return for a life sentence. She signed the plea-agreement document. But prosecutors then refused to accept it because Porterfield, the actual slayer, would not accept the same plea. Judge McCartie said he had "absolutely no authority" to accept her independent plea. Owens and Porterfield were tried together. The jury sentenced them to death.

As a result Gale Owens is the only inmate in Tennessee prison history to face execution after accepting a prosecutor's offer to plead guilty with a life sentence.

Other cases raise more questions
The history of fatal domestic violence cases in Tennessee courts provides other legalistic outcomes that make even more puzzling the plight of Gaile Owens.

In 1982, Kathryn England, a mother of four in Limestone in East Tennessee, murdered her husband, Frank, by punching a hole in the bedroom ceiling and shooting him with his hunting rifle. She remained in the upstairs room while her husband, pleading for help, bled to death.

The prosecution told her jury that the act was premeditated: that she had drugged him and planned the shot through the ceiling before the slaying. The jury rejected her spousal abuse claim and sentenced her to life in prison. She contracted cancer in prison and appealed to Gov. Lamar Alexander to commute her sentence on two grounds: she had been a battered woman and she was suffering from life-threatening cancer.


In 1984, Alexander commuted her life sentence to the 15 months she had served after a recommendation from the state parole board, and she was freed. Alexander, in granting her plea because of her illness, said of her battered woman defense: "There may be other cases where it should be considered as a basis for release." England, who has since died, married again three years after her release.

And then there is the Memphis case of William E. Groseclose, who hired two men to murder his wife, Deborah Lee, in 1977. He was convicted and sentenced to death along with Ronald Eugene Rickman, the man he paid to kill her.

The Tennessee Supreme Court, in rejecting an early appeal, described the slaying as "the most atrocious and inhuman conceivable." Rickman and a colleague, Phillip Michael Britt, kidnapped and raped Deborah Groseclose, stabbed her repeatedly in the back and left her in the trunk of a car in a Memphis parking lot. Groseclose and Rickman were sentenced to death. In 1997, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed their sentences on grounds that their lawyers had so bungled the defense that they had been effectively denied legal counsel. Both killers were re-sentenced to life.

Gaile Owens' appeals also contended that her lawyers were incompetent because they failed to introduce evidence of battered woman syndrome. In the Groseclose and Rickman cases, two of three federal judges, James Ryan and Damon Keith, found clear evidence that their lawyers failed them and reversed their convictions. A third judge, Richard Suhrheinrich, dissented.

In Gaile Owens' case, two of the three federal appeals judges, Danny Boggs and Eugene Siler, found that she did not cooperate with her lawyers and that they were competent. The third judge, Gilbert Merritt, found that her lawyers were unprepared and failed to give her an adequate defense. In federal appeals cases, two-judge majorities prevail. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear her case.

Within a few weeks, Gaile Owens will be the seventh inmate executed by lethal injection since 2000. The sixth, Cecil J. Johnson, died by lethal injection earlier this month.

In a letter written to Gov. Phil Bredesen earlier this year, Owens expressed her continuing remorse over her actions. Surprisingly, nowhere in the letter does she ask the governor to commute her death sentence to life.

George Barrett, who now is representing Owens, has joined Swift and Henry, the federal public defenders, in filing a formal plea asking the governor to commute her sentence to life in prison. That was the plea she tried to make in a Memphis trial court almost a quarter century ago.

Tennessee inches closer to joining states that have put women inmates to death

Tennessee inches closer to joining states that have put women inmates to death

Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 12:01am

http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city-news/tennessee-inches-closer-joining-states-have-put-women-inmates-death


Gaile K. Owens
In 1985, allegedly abusive husband Ronald Owens was beaten to death in a gruesome murder-for-hire scheme in Shelby County by a man his wife paid $17,000. Now, his former wife, Gaile K. Owens, sits on Tennessee’s death row, and could become only the 12th woman in the last 30-plus years to be executed in the United States.

Owens was convicted in 1988 in Shelby County of hiring Sidney Porterfield to murder Ronald Owens. Both sit on death row for a crime court records suggest was violent and savage. The crime began with Gaile Owens openly soliciting men to kill her husband. Records in the State v. Porterfield, 746 S.W. 2d 441 (Tenn. 1988), showed that she met with one of the would-be hitmen, Sidney Porterfield, at least three times.

“Ronald Owens was found in the family’s den on February 17, 1985, with his skull smashed from at least 21 blows from a tire iron,” the court record states. “He had been beaten with so much force that fragments of his skull had been driven into his brain and his face had been driven into the floor. Blood was splattered over the walls and floor. A pathologist’s report showed extensive injuries to his hands, indicating that he had been trying to cover his head with his hands during the savage attack.”

Owens’ case, though, is becoming a rallying point for anti-death penalty forces in Tennessee looking to reverse a recent trend of executions in the state under Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen.

“I recognize that because Owens is a woman there may be more attention given to her as it is rare for a woman to be sentenced to death,” conceded Stacy Rector, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing (TCASK). “Tennessee has only two women on its death row. However, I hope that citizens will not only pay close attention to the Owens case but also to the other troubling capital cases in Tennessee which demonstrate the brokenness of the death penalty system in our state.”

Last week, in a 2-1 decision, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the jury’s decision to implement the death penalty despite the vehement objections of Judge Gil Merritt, a Nashville resident.

In writing the dissenting opinion, Merritt lambasted his colleagues and accused the state of withholding evidence at trial, that Owens had ineffective counsel, that her rights were denied in trial and addressed a myriad of other problems he found with the case.

There are allegations in the court documents, accepted by Merritt and dismissed by his colleagues, that Gaile Owens suffered significant sexual and physical violence for years during her marriage to Ronald Owens.

There are several legal options keeping Owens from Tennessee’s death chamber. Her case is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court for further appeal. In addition, U.S. District Court Judge Aleta Trauger has in place an opinion ruling Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol unconstitutional, effectively stopping the state at present from executing anyone via lethal injection.

Politically, Owens’ fate rests in the hands of Gov. Phil Bredesen or more likely his successor.

The State of Tennessee is a staunchly pro-death penalty state that has executed four men since capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976 — three of them under Bredesen including the controversial electrocution of Daryl K. Holton last year. Nationally, there have been 1,136 executions in that same time frame. Only 11 of those executed have been women. There are currently 87 people on death row in Tennessee, two of them are women.

In many cases, executing a woman has tested the resolve of proponents of state executions, perhaps none more so than the 1998 execution of Karla Faye Tucker in Texas.

Tucker became a cause célèbre despite having been convicted of killing another woman with a pickaxe. Prominent figures from then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to televangelist Pat Robertson championed her cause and asked then Texas Gov. George W. Bush to commute her sentence. Bush let the execution go through on Feb. 3, 1998.

Did conservatives like Gingrich and Robertson support clemency because Tucker had become a devout Christian while incarcerated or because they believed that she had been reformed? Many men who have walked the “last mile” have claimed religion and reform before their demise, without the support of God’s gatekeepers. Was their support forthcoming because it involved executing a woman? In the decade since Tucker’s execution the questions remain.

There is no question that Owens is guilty of murder-for-hire. She had been willing to accept a plea bargain originally offered to her by prosecutors if she and her accomplice Porterfield pleaded guilty and accepted a sentence of life without parole. Porterfield rolled the dice and rejected the offer, landing them both on death row.

Still, Rector and others maintain the problems they see in the Owens case are reflected in most of Tennessee’s death row cases.

“The case of Gaile Owens is a tragic story of abuse and murder which has caused her family and community great suffering,” Rector said. “At the same time, Owens sentence is also very problematic given the lack of adequate representation she received at trial as well as the prosecutor’s failure to turn over important evidence to the defense. Even more troubling, the problems highlighted in this case are not isolated ones since many of the other nearly 100 individuals on Tennessee’s death row have similar issues in their cases.”

The case will continue to wind through the legal process and judges will ponder Owens’ fate as well as the future of Tennessee’s lethal injection procedure. Meanwhile, Bredesen and every possible candidate for governor in 2010 will have to decide what they will do if the courts put the final decision in their hands.

Delay sought in Gaile Owens' death penalty case

Delay sought in Gaile Owens' death penalty case

December 15, 2009


http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091215/NEWS03/912150353/Delay-sought-in-Gaile-Owens/--death-penalty-case

DAVIDSON COUNTY

Attorneys for death row inmate Gaile Owens have asked for more time to prepare a defense against a request to set her execution date.

The state attorney general's office requested an execution date for Owens early this month after her final appeal was rejected. Owens was sentenced to death in 1986 for hiring a man to kill her husband, Ronald Owens. Sidney Porterfield was convicted of carrying out the hit for Owens and is also on death row.

Owens, 57, was the first woman sentenced to death under Tennessee's 1977 death penalty law.
Her lawyers have asked the Tennessee Supreme Court for an extension until Feb. 5 to argue for a commuted sentence, saying that she was forced to trial despite agreeing to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence and that no court has fairly considered evidence that she was abused by her husband.

Woman on TN death row awaits execution date from court

Woman on TN death row awaits execution date from court

By Kate Howard • THE TENNESSEAN • December 9, 2009

The state attorney general's office has asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to set an execution date for one of the two women on death row.

Gaile Owens was convicted in 1986 of accessory before the fact of first-degree murder for having her husband killed in West Tennessee.

Ronald Owens was beaten to death; Sidney Porterfield was convicted of carrying out the slaying for Owens. Porterfield is also on death row.

Owens' appeals have been exhausted, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied her request for a re-hearing on Nov. 30. The state requested Tuesday that a date be set for her execution.

Owens, 57, was the first woman sentenced to death under Tennessee's 1977 death penalty law.
Her appeal was denied 2-1 by a panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals last year. Her attorneys had argued that she had ineffective representation, that the state didn't turn over key evidence and that the trial judge wouldn't let her tell the jury she wanted to plead guilty in return for a life sentence.

Another woman, Christa Pike, is on death fow for killing fellow Job Corps worker Colleen Slemmer in 1995.

There have been seven executions in Tennessee since 2000, the most recent was last week. Cecil C. Johnson Jr., was executed by lethal injection for the 1980 murders of three people during a robbery at a Nashville market

.
Contact Kate Howard at or kahoward@tennessean.com