Monday, May 3, 2010

U.S. Supreme Court refuses to review case of British grandmother on death row

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review the case of a British woman on death row in Texas for killing a young mother.
The justices today rejected an appeal from Linda Carty, who was convicted of kidnapping and killing a woman whose child she also snatched in Houston in 2001.
Carty has complained that her trial lawyers were deficient. The British government and human rights groups have aided Carty's cause.
Carty is one of 10 condemned women in Texas. She is a former teacher from St Kitts in the British Virgin Islands.
In September, a taped voice recording of Carty begging Britons to help save her life was broadcast into London's Trafalgar Square.
In 2002, she was convicted of ordering the kidnap and murder of Joana Rodriguez, 25, whose body was found in the boot of a car Carty had been leasing.
The reason for the murder, the prosecution argued, was that she wanted to steal Rodriguez's four-day-old baby, who was unharmed.
Although Carty already had a grown-up daughter, she was alleged to have told her former partner, Jose Corona, that she was pregnant.
Prosecutors say Carty masterminded the abduction so she could masquerade as the child's mother in an effort to salvage her troubled relationship with Corona.
The British human rights group Reprieve has argued that the case against Carty was full of inconsistencies.
Reprieve also said Carty should have received assistance from the British consulate at the time of her arrest but did not.

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