Texas To Execute 4th Woman, 500th Prisoner, Kimberly McCarthy
Texas will execute its 4th woman and its 500th prisoner when convicted killer Kimberly McCarthy is put to death.
According to Time Magazine, McCarthy is set to the 500th person to be executed in the state of Texas since the state reinstated the death penalty in 2010. McCarthy will be the fourth woman to be executed in Texas and the first in the United States since 2010.
More people are executed in Texas than in any other state. Nearly 40 percent of the executions in the United States have taken place in Texas since 1976.
McCarthy’s attorney, Maurie Levin, said that she has filed numerous appeals on her client’s behalf but is now out of options.
Levin said: “If there was something to appeal, I would.”
McCarthy is facing execution over the murder of Dorothy Booth. McCarthy went to Booth’s home in 1997 and asked for a cup of sugar. Once she was let inside, McCarthy beat, robbed, and stabbed the retired college professor.
NBC notes that several states have abolished the death penalty and that there is an ongoing debate about the merits of putting people to death for their crimes. Still, 32 states have the death penalty on the books and the majority of Texans support the practice.
Randy Browning, the victim’s godson, said: “The only significance for us is that Kimberly McCarthy, because of her crack cocaine addiction or her sociopathic personality, deprived us of Dorothy Booth… Whether it’s the 500th or the 5,000th, it doesn’t matter.”
Levin, on the other hand, argues that McCarthy’s case is plagued with racial bias and that Texas should be ashamed of itself for executing another woman and its 500th prisoner.
Levin said: The shameful errors that plague Ms. McCarthy’s case — race bias, ineffective counsel and courts unwilling to exercise meaningful oversight of the system — reflect problems that are central to the administration of the death penalty as a whole. For this to be the emblem of Texas’ 500th execution is something all Texans should be ashamed of.”
