Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Law and Order Governor's Statement on Owens Commutation
Posted by Jeff Woods on Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 10:55 AM
As you know, Gaile Owens was convicted in 1986 for arranging the murder of her husband and sentenced to death. Last summer, she asked for clemency through a group of attorneys, and I met with one of them—George Barrett—in February of this year. This is a complex and emotional case, and I've considered it carefully. Earlier this morning, I signed a commutation of her sentence to life in prison with the meaning in terms as they existed in 1986. While I don't normally explain myself in these matters, this case has generated an enormous amount of interest and I felt the need to talk a little more about it. I feel that I should describe at least the two considerations that seemed to me to be the most important.First, there's at least the possibility of her being in an abusive marriage. While that in no way excuses arranging for murder, that possibility of abuse and the psychological conditions that can result from that abuse seems to me at least a factor affecting the severity of the punishment.
Second, Ms. Owens was offered a plea bargain prior to her trial of life imprisonment in exchange for her guilty plea. She accepted that plea bargain, the responsibility and the punishment, and the district attorney clearly considered it an appropriate resolution in this matter. Nearly all of the similar cases that we have looked at have been handled in this way. We reviewed 33 cases of a woman arranging and being charged and convicted of first-degree murder of her husband. Some of them involved abuse. Some of them did not. Some of them had a co-conspirator and some of them did not. In two of those cases, the person was sentenced to death. One of them Lamar Alexander commuted. The second one I'm commuting today. One of them is serving life in prison without parole. The other 30 are serving life in prison sentences. So nearly all of the similar cases that we have looked at resulted in life in prison sentences.
The plea bargain she entered into had an unusual condition attached, that the man accused of actually committing the murder also accept a similar plea bargain. When he didn't, the agreement became ineffective and Ms. Owens went to trial with the result that we know about.
What I've done here is to go back and to the extent possible now honor the concept of that plea bargain. Had she received a life sentence she would have been eligible to earn sentence credits in various ways. As a prisoner under sentence of death, this is of course not possible. To make some adjustment for that fact and to provide some clarity, the commutation also grants her a thousand days of sentence credit and the right to participate in normal sentence credit process in the future. This credit is considerably less than she would likely have earned had the life sentence been in effect for the past 25 years.
So Ms. Owens is guilty of first degree murder. She accepted responsibility for that prior to her trial. Nearly all the similar cases in Tennessee over the years have resulted in life sentences. And based on these considerations, I consider this a case in which the death penalty is inappropriate and in which a sentence of life in prison is appropriate.
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Comments (6)
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Governor Bredesen has to be commended for making a very sound, common sense decision.
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So no WOMAN can be executed for first-degree murder in Tennessee, given so many of its men's paternalistic, sexist notions of "justice" and improper use of the "abuse excuse." Here's another blow against true equal rights between the sexes. At least I hope this allegation that one person's plea bargain terms depended on a co-defendant's copping to the same plea was admitted by the Assistant District Attorney accused of this or otherwise proven. In all of this, I haven't heard one bit of proof on this allegation.
"At least I hope this allegation that one person's plea bargain terms depended on a co-defendant's copping to the same plea was admitted by the Assistant District Attorney accused of this or otherwise proven."
Is that supposed to be a question? If you don't believe the stories you read, look at the court records. It's all right there.
"I hope this allegation that one person's plea bargain terms depended on a co-defendant's copping to the same plea was admitted by the Assistant District Attorney accused of this or otherwise proven. In all of this, I haven't heard one bit of proof on this allegation."
I too can't tell from your writing whether you're trying to say that there is no proof that the plea bargain offer to Owens was contingent upon Porterfield accepting it too. It's not clear exactly what you're trying to say in those two sentences.
However, if you are trying to dispute that the plea bargain offer was contingent on both defendants accepting it, you are wrong. There is, in the record for anyone who cares to look, a Jan. 3, 1986, letter on Hugh W. Stanton Jr.'s letterhead, from Don D. Strother, assistant district attorney general, to Owens' trial attorneys, Jim Marty and Brett Stein, that says:
"This is to verify our conversation of yesterday afternoon in which I notified you ... that the State would recommend to the Court upon a plea of guilty as charged to either count of the Indictment that a Life sentence be imposed upon your client, Marsha Gail Owens. THIS OFFER IS CONTINGENT UPON ITS ACCEPTANCE BY JANUARY 3, 1986 AND THE ACCEPTANCE OF A SIMILAR OFFER BY MS. OWENS CO-DEFENDANT, SIDNEY PORTERFIELD, AS THE CASE IS NOT SEVERABLE." (emphasis added)
You can believe it or not -- that is up to you -- or you can expend some shoe leather and dig it out of the record yourself, if it interests you enough.
Prof. Ludovico, I think Wintermute is just expressing frustration that a woman got commuted while men generally don't. And with the somewhat recent Mary Winkler case still fresh in people's minds, there is a general sense, among men especially, that women get off easier. What I would say to Wintermute is, how many men are on death row under similar circumstances, i.e. killing an abusive spouse? I haven't dug into the records, but I suspect it's rare.
Now understand, I do not like the death penalty. It is too subjective in that some are on it and have been executed for crimes they committed out of passion or while high on drugs (Philip Workman) while others get life sentences, and not the death penalty, for truly evil forms of extreme brutality. And more importantly, it's a fact that innocent people have been executed. See Sacco and Vanzetti or more recently Cameron Todd Willingham- http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09…
But we have capital punishment and one of the toughest jobs that a governor has is to weigh the circumstances when the inevitable case comes up about commutation. Bredesen did that and did it well in this case. It would have been a gross misrepresentation of justice for him to allow this execution. Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, should have had the same sense of justice in Texas several years ago. He didn't and a likely innocent man was executed. So kudos to Bredesen, a man that has frustrated me in many ways, but who came through well here.
It does not appear that the above people knew Gaile and her past history. I wish people would hold their comments unless you know the circumstances. What Governor Bredesen did was a disgrace.
