Teresa Lewis, Virginia Woman With Borderline Mental Retardation Faces Execution

Sept. 9, 2010— -- Teresa Lewis, a woman diagnosed with borderline mental retardation, is scheduled to be the first woman executed in Virginia since 1912, unless Governor Robert McDonell or the U.S. Supreme Court step in.

According to court records, in 2002, Lewis participated in a plan with two hitmen to kill her husband and stepson in order to get a life insurance payout. Lewis stood in another room, as Matthew J. Shallenberger and Rodney L. Fuller shot Julian Lewis and his son C.J., at close range.

After the hitmen fled, Lewis waited 45 minutes while her husband lay dying, before calling the police. She claimed that an unknown intruder had shot the men.

When sheriff's deputies arrived on the scene Julian Lewis told them, "My wife knows who done this do me." He died soon after.

Teresa Lewis eventually pled guilty to her role in the plan. In court, she apologized to the judge for her actions saying she was "truly sorry, from the bottom of my heart."

Shallenberger and Fuller were sentenced to life in prison. But the trial judge found that Lewis was the mastermind behind the crimes and sentenced her to death. The judge pointed out that after her husband was shot, Lewis went to his room and searched his pants for money. The judge found that Lewis' conduct "fits the definition of the outrageous or wantonly vile, horrible act."

But lawyers for Lewis, who appealed her sentence, have argued that new evidence has come to light that provides more information about Lewis' role in the crimes and that her original lawyers provided her with ineffective counsel because they didn't fully explore the ramifications of her low IQ. Lewis was tested by a board ceritifed forensic psychiatrist who found her IQ to be in the "borderline range " of intellectual functioning, but not at the level of mental retardation.

Those claims have been rejected by the Virginia Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. Now her lawyers have filed a petition for clemency with the Governor and an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.

"We think Teresa has an extremely strong case for clemency because evidence has been developed that no court has looked at before, " said James E. Rocap III, a lawyer for Lewis.