Karla Faye Tucker

Karla Faye Tucker Brown (November 18, 1959 ? February 3, 1998) Karla Tucker was born and grew up 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 Danny Garrett and Karla Tucker were convicted of their murder.

International reactions

Karla 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. Abroad, her execution was viewed mostly as a further evidence of the widely shared belief of Americans' reckless disregard for human life. Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro echoed this opinion by noting in a public speech that spectators outside a Texas prison had cheered when Karla Faye 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 Amazing Grace was shouted down by cries Kill the bitch! and Use a pick-ax! from the crowd that gathered outside of prison. From Nicaragua, Bianca Jagger campaigned on Karla Faye Tucker's and Sean Sellers' behalf, using their example (Sean Sellers was executed the same year as Karla Tucker for a crime committed at age 16) 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 while they have been children.

Related Topics:
Civil War - United States - 1984 - Bianca Jagger

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