Karla Faye Tucker

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Karla Faye Tucker Brown (November 18, 1959–February 3, 1998) was convicted of murder in 1984 and sentenced to death. The case entered the U.S. and international news because she had become a born-again Christian while in prison and George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, had to decide on her request for clemency, which he ultimately denied. Tucker became the first woman to be executed in Texas since the American Civil War.

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[edit] Early years, and murder

Karla Tucker was born and raised in Houston, Texas. When she was 13, she began traveling with the Allman Brothers Band. In her early 20's she started to hang out with bikers and on June 13, 1983 she entered the home of another biker with Danny Garrett and James Leibrant to steal a motorcycle. During the robbery, two persons were killed, and Garrett and Tucker were convicted of their murder.

[edit] The trendy lie

During Tucker's trial, a tape recorded by Garrett's brother while wearing a wire was played on which she claimed that she had multiple orgasms during the killings. She retorted that this was just big talk to impress her friends. On this point, Florence King (National Review, March 9, 1998) commented that

The murder occurred in 1983 when the multiple-orgasm craze was going full-tilt, when it was impossible to turn on the TV without hearing feminists talking about the female's "superior capacity," or read Cosmopolitan without finding an article on the mighty G-spot. I would bet anything that enough of this pop carnality filtered through to Karla Faye to inspire the trendy lie that sealed her doom.

[edit] The prison years, and death

Garrett and Tucker were sentenced to death in 1984. In 1993, Garrett died in prison of liver disease. While on death row, Tucker became a born-again Christian and married by proxy the prison chaplain, Dana Lane Brown, whom she was allowed to see during the marriage ceremony only through a acrylic glass barrier. On February 3, 1998, Karla Faye Tucker was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 6:45 p.m. Her last words were:

"Yes sir, I would like to say to all of you – the Thornton family and Jerry Dean’s family that I am so sorry. I hope God will give you peace with this. Baby, I love you. Ron, give Peggy a hug for me. Everybody has been so good to me. I love all of you very much. I am going to be face to face with Jesus now. Warden Baggett, thank all of you so much. You have been so good to me. I love all of you very much. I will see you all when you get there. I will wait for you."

She was buried in an unmarked grave. However, the inscription she wanted on her headstone, a poem by Mary Frye, can be found on the Internet:

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain;
I am the gentle autumn's rain.

[edit] Karla Tucker and George W. Bush

Under Texas law, each death penalty case has one chance to be reprieved by a governor without the recommendation of the Board of Pardons and Paroles. The board must recommend the second reprieve in order for it to be granted. All 18 members of the Board of Pardons and Paroles are appointed by the governor (Clark, 2000). Before Tucker was executed, there were pleas for clemency from Waly Bacre Ndiaye, the United Nations commissioner on summary and arbitrary executions, the World Council of Churches, Pope John Paul II, and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, among other world figures. Unusual pleas came from conservative American political figures such as Newt Gingrich and Pat Robertson, interceding on her behalf. Tucker did not ask for a pardon, only commutation of her death sentence to life in prison. Huntsville Prison's warden testified that she was a model prisoner and that, after 14 years on death row, she likely had been reformed. Despite these pleas, Bush signed her death warrant. In 1999, during the 2000 Republican Presidential primary race, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson interviewed Bush for Talk Magazine (September 1999, p. 106). Excerpt from this interview is quoted below:

In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, a number of protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Karla Faye Tucker. "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask. Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them," he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with Tucker, though. He asked her real difficult questions like, 'What would you say to Governor Bush?'" "What was her answer?" I wonder. "'Please,'" Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "'don't kill me.'" I must look shocked — ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel — because he immediately stops smirking.

Bush denied that he had intended to make light of the issue.

[edit] International reactions

Tucker gained international attention both for being the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War and the first in the United States since 1984. Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro noted in a public speech that spectators outside a Texas prison had cheered when Tucker was executed. "And we are on the threshold of 2,000 years of Christ!" he exclaimed. In England, Richard Harries of the Diocese of Oxford reported that a Gospel singer's rendition of Amazing Grace was shouted down by cries of Kill the bitch! from the crowd that gathered outside of prison. From Nicaragua, Bianca Jagger campaigned on behalf of Tucker and Sean Sellers, who was executed the same year as Tucker for a crime he committed at age 16, using their example to point out the anomaly of the U.S. Justice system as compared to other post-industrial countries that abolished the death penalty and executions of prisoners for crimes committed when they were legally considered children.

[edit] Sound tracks

  • Indigo Girls (1999). Faye Tucker (Ray) on the album [Come On Now Social] [Epic Records]
  • Mary Gauthier (2001). Karla Faye (Mary Gauthier/Crit Harmon) on the album Drag Queens & Limousines [Munich Records BV]
  • David Knopfler (2002). Karla Faye (David Knopfler) on the album Wishbones [Paris Records/Edel GmbH/Koch Entertainment]
  • Audrey Auld Mezera (2005). Karla Faye (Mary Gauthier/Crit Harmon) on the album Texas [Reckless Records]

[edit] Theatrical plays

  • MacNeil, R. (2005) Karla. Produced by Long Wharf Theatre, Hartford, CT.
  • 10/23/05 - KARLA by Steve Earle opens at 45 Below Theatre in NYC

[edit] References

  • Carlson, T. (1999). Devil May Care, Talk Magazine, September 1999, p. 106.
  • Clark, T. (2000). Texas procedures on death penalty reprieves. CNN Law Center. June 22, 2000.
  • King, L. (1998). Karla Faye Tucker: Live from Death Row. CNN Transcript # 98011400V22.
  • Strom, L. (2000). Karla Faye Tucker set free: life and faith on death row. New York, NY. Random House: Shaw Books.

[edit] External links

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