A woman will be executed in the U.S. state of Tennessee for the first time in 200 years

In the U.S. state of Tennessee, a woman will be executed for the first time in two centuries — 50-year-old Christa Pike.

This was reported by the ABC News television channel.

The day before, the state's governor, Bill Lee, refused to pardon Pike, while her lawyers appealed to the country's Supreme Court with a request to suspend the process of preparing for the execution.

The sentence against the convict will be carried out on September 30, unless the Supreme Court intervenes in the process. In that case, Pike will become the first woman executed in the state of Tennessee since 1820.

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of her 19-year-old fellow student Colleen Slemmer. At the time of the crime, the defendant was 18 years old. According to the prosecution, Pike was jealous of Slemmer over her boyfriend, lured her to a secluded place and, together with her boyfriend, tortured and killed her.

Pike admitted her guilt. Nevertheless, the defense considered the death penalty a disproportionate punishment, pointing to the woman's age at the time she committed the crime, the abuse she experienced in childhood, and her bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders. The mother of the victim, for her part, demanded that the sentence be carried out.

In the United States, death sentences against women are rarely carried out.

Over the past 50 years, 18 women have been executed in the country, or 1% of the total number of executions.

Source: Gazeta.ru