Execute Woman - Starving & Abusing 9-year-old

I wasn't referencing to this case, specifically, but to the acts that have warranted the reinstatement of the death penalty for heinous crimes *like* this.

just for this

As I've stated numerous times, I don't advocate for murder, but I do for self defense, obviously you and some others can't comprehend the difference.

Well you can't say for certain that the intruder is coming to harm you, but you can say for certain that a murderer killed. So

I can only conclude that you support killing as a preventive measure. Thus you should agree with the death penalty when necessary seeing as it not only a preventive measure but also a deterrent.

Stalin knew how to execute fools on the cheap. we need to get on his level.

/disapoint

Look at the definitions again. You at least broadly fit into the definition of both.

Woman Executed for Boy's 2004 Starvation Death
by Terri Langford Sept. 17, 2014 33Comments

In 2004, Davontae Marcel Williams, on the left, was found starved to death. Lisa Ann Coleman, on the right, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday night for her role in the boy's death. If carried out, she would be the sixth woman to be executed in Texas since 1982.

In 2004, Davontae Marcel Williams, on the left, was found starved to death. Lisa Ann Coleman, on the right, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday night for her role in the boy's death. If carried out, she would be the sixth woman to be executed in Texas since 1982.

Texas death row inmate Lisa Ann Coleman was executed Wednesday night, the sixth woman put to death since the death penalty was reinstated in Texas.

Coleman, 38, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2004 starvation death of her girlfriend's son, Davontae Marcel Williams.

Before the lethal drug pentobarbital was injected into her inside the execution chamber at the state's Huntsville Unit, Coleman expressed love for her family and thanked her lawyers.

“I just want to tell my family I love them, my son, I love him," Coleman said, according to a statement released by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. "God is good … I’m done.”

She died 12 minutes after the drug was administered. Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Robert Hurst said Coleman's time of death was 6:24 p.m.

Coleman was the 517th person to be executed in the state since 1982, the year Texas reinstated the death penalty following a 1976 Supreme Court decision that allowed states to resume capital punishment. She is the ninth person executed in Texas this year.

She was living with her girlfriend, Marcella Williams, in an Arlington apartment complex when paramedics discovered the starved corpse of a 9-year-old boy on July 26, 2004. He had been beaten, bore 250 scars and weighed 35 pounds at the time of his death, about half the typical weight for a child his age.

At the time of his death, Davontae was suffering from pneumonia. His cause of death was malnutrition with pneumonia as a contributing factor, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office.

Both Coleman and the boy’s mother were charged with capital murder. But Williams pleaded guilty in 2006 to avoid facing the death penalty at trial. Child Protective Services records showed Williams and her son had been the subject of at least six child abuse investigations.

Coleman’s attorney, John Stickels of Arlington, appealed her death sentence based on how his client was initially charged.

In Texas, there has to be an underlying felony or second crime committed for a defendant to be charged with capital murder. Before 2011, those underlying crimes were murder, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, obstruction or terroristic threat. But in 2011, lawmakers added the killing of a child under the age of 10 to those underlying crimes.

In the Davontae Williams case, prosecutors used kidnapping as the underlying crime. Prosecutors presented evidence that Davontae had been locked in a pantry and kept from leaving his own home.

But Stickels says there was no kidnapping, at least not according to Texas law. His appeal to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans based on that claim was rejected late Tuesday, and the U.S. Supreme Court chose not to intervene.

“It is wrong, it is child abuse, but it’s not kidnapping,” Stickels said. “I’m not saying she’s innocent and did not do something wrong. But it’s just not kidnapping.”

At Coleman’s 2006 trial, it was revealed that the two women bound Davontae’s wrists and sometimes locked him in a pantry. Stickels said that even though the law defines kidnapping as placing someone in an area with the intention of hiding them, it is not kidnapping if a parent places a child in a room to punish him.

“Lisa is absolutely innocent of capital murder,” Stickels insisted. “And if they execute her, they will be executing someone who is innocent of capital murder.”

Reports from those prior CPS investigations detailed how Davontae was found to be hungry. In 1999, he and his sister, Destinee, were placed into foster care after Davontae was found to have been beaten with an extension cord. Coleman denied beating him with a cord, and Williams told CPS that they had bound him with one. Davontae, born four months premature, had developmental disabilities, according to a clinical psychologist who examined the boy after he was placed in foster care.

The two children were eventually returned when Williams promised to stay away from Coleman.

In 2004, Davontae’s case was part of a state review of 1,103 child abuse cases in North Texas that was ordered by Gov. Rick Perry. The state's Health and Human Services Commission Office of Inspector General found that CPS caseworkers failed 70 percent of the time to act quickly to protect a child in danger.

"It appears that CPS Region 3 [Dallas/Fort Worth] was performing at a minimum standard and often below standards," Brian Flood, the commission's inspector general at the time, said in his report to the governor. "When abuse or neglect was indicated in the file, only 30 percent of the time did CPS caseworkers implement the appropriate safety steps for the short term protection of the child."

Truly a country in decay.

Can someone explain to me the logic on that ? How keeping an life sentence inmate is cheaper than capital penalty ?

Who is putting that money on their pockets ? The inmate certainly is not. :P

You're not defending yourself in that instance.

You're being a coward. Shooting someone because they might pose a threat to you.

You know. That thing you get upset at the big, bad, corrupt police for doing.

I don't have to, but the potential threat is definitely there.

You cannot say for certain that a convicted murderer has killed, posted a link to that earlier.

The death penalty isn't a preventative measure or a deterrent to anything, and no I support the use of lethal force when there's something to protect, there's nothing being protected in this or other capital execution cases.

Police have a duty to protect and serve and that duty comes before their life (well except for more recent court decisions...) shooting somebody who may be a threat to me isn't cowardly at all, I have a daughter to protect and provide for.

What is cowardly is to execute people who are already in prison because you think they're "bad."

Also in case nobody said it yet: 9.

Seems money is the issue a lot of people are having with this. Can some one actually provide the cost of a life sentence (over 10 years) and a cost of an execution (with 10 year waiting line)?

All honestly I think its only costing more money due to the line being so long. They need to hold Multi Executions to shorten it.

Seems money is the issue a lot of people are having with this. Can some one actually provide the cost of a life sentence (over 10 years) and a cost of an execution (with 10 year waiting line)?

All honestly I think its only costing more money due to the line being so long. They need to hold Multi Executions to shorten it.

Must Shock Mondays! - Electric Chair
Totally Toxic Tuesdays! - Lethal Injection
Windy Wednesdays! - Gas Chamber
Can't think of one for Thursday....
Firing Squad Friday! - Firing Squad

Weekends would of course be the days off.

Thanks Zah: now we found out that she wasn't even qualified for the death penalty according to the law, but some other sick people (this time judges) refused to follow the law.

Way to go

I don't disagree that there are innocent people behind bars or on death row. But that is a flaw in the judicial system.

And Death penalty is most definitely a preventative measure, as is jail time, the lack of which would lead to anarchy and chaos. Death sentences being available are just more potent a deterrent than prison sentences.

It's too late to backpedal and try to turn that first post into a generalisation. That post was specific in nature, although it was clear from the way it was written that you only skimmed the text. "father of the son" indeed.

Truly a country in decay.

Like I said. Narcissistic.

You can come up with all these reasons you're somehow above or exempt from the standard to which everyone else needs to be held.

How was she not qualified for the death penalty? Especially in Texas?

Edit: Nevermind, I see your quibble.

In Texas, there has to be an underlying felony or second crime committed for a defendant to be charged with capital murder. Before 2011, those underlying crimes were murder, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, obstruction or terroristic threat. But in 2011, lawmakers added the killing of a child under the age of 10 to those underlying crimes.

Pretty sure that it's been proven that it's not a deterrent to violent crime, but I don't feel like backing that up, so I'll just disagree.

How was she not qualified for the death penalty? Especially in Texas?

Edit: Nevermind, I see your quibble.

Edit2: It's legal double-speak trying to help scum get off the hook.

To The anti-death penalty people: No one is saying you should like it or enjoy it. That doesn't mean it should not be used when necessary because you can't stomach it.

Here's my problem Jet.

Why not use non-lethal force on those thieves and home invaders then? If the goal is self-defense. Why should we have the ability to dispense summary justice but the legal system with the consent of the people can't?

Why the need for guns if 'murdering' is such a hangup?

not at all, she was charged with an extra crime that she didn't commit, and put to death based on that, there's no justice in that, regardless of how guilty she was of torture and murder.

As much as I dislike lawyers, the system needs to follow the law. While I am of the mind that the death penalty shouldn't even be an option (well it is lolTexas after all) if you're going to do it, at least have it solid.