John Grisham Sees Va. Case as ‘Glaring Example’ of Death Penalty’s Unfairness
Legal thriller author John Grisham is taking a look at a real life case of a woman who got the death penalty for plotting two murders carried out by two men who avoided the same fate.
On the advice of her lawyers, Teresa Lewis pleaded guilty after cooperating with authorities, Grisham writes in a column for the Washington Post. A judge reasoned Lewis was the mastermind of the plan to kill her husband and stepson for money, and was more culpable then the two co-defendants who pulled the trigger and got life in prison.
On appeal, however, lawyers for Lewis presented evidence that she is borderline retarded and has a personality disorder that makes her comply with the demands of others. One of the defendants, who since committed suicide, told an investigator he knew from the moment he met Lewis that she was someone who could be easily manipulated and used to obtain some money. Experts doubted that Lewis had the mental abilities to lead a murder conspiracy.
Grisham writes that Lewis’ appeals are coming to an end. “If she is executed, she will become another glaring example of the unfairness of our death penalty system,” he says.
“In this case, as in so many capital cases, the imposition of a death sentence had little do with fairness. Like other death sentences, it depended more upon the assignment of judge and prosecutor, the location of the crime, the quality of the defense counsel, the speed with which a co-defendant struck a deal, the quality of each side’s experts and other such factors. … Such inconsistencies mock the idea that ours is a system grounded in equality before the law.”
