United Nations Service

New York, 24 February 2000

UN human rights experts appeal to Texas Governor not to execute woman

Experts of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights have appealed to Texas Governor George W. Bush not to execute a woman sentenced to death for killing her husband after a 1985 trial in which crucial evidence was allegedly never presented to the jury.

The Commission's "Special Rapporteurs" on executions and violence against women, Asma Jahangir and Radhika Coomaraswamy, respectively, expressed their concern to the governor that the abuse and extreme violence suffered by the defendent, Betty Lou Beets, were not considered by the investigating authorities or by the courts when convicting and sentencing her for murder.

In their 24 February letter to Governor Bush, the experts cited testimony which reportedly established that Ms. Beets suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, battered women's syndrome and organic brain damage - results of a long history of spousal abuse.

According to the rapporteurs, studies have shown that victims of domestic violence live within a violent cycle of abuse from which they are unable to escape either physically and mentally. They said that courts around the world had accepted evidence of "battered women's syndrome" in mitigation of charges of murder.

"In so doing, they have recognized the gender bias which is entrenched within criminal justice systems, particularly in regard to the defence of provocation and self-defence which are constructed around male norms of behavior," the experts said.

Ms. Jahangir and Ms. Coomaraswamy urged Governor Bush to exercise his prerogative of mercy and refrain from carrying out the execution in observance of the de facto moratorium on the execution of women in the United States since the death by lethal injection of Karla Faye Tucker in Texas on 3 February 1998.