Kimberly McCarthy is still facing the death penalty after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied her appeal Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. McCarthy would become the 500th person to be executed since 1982 when the state recommenced its use of the punishment.
According to Maurine Levin, a University of Texas law professor and McCarthy’s attorney, the case could not be presented in front of the U.S. Supreme Court because the ruling dealt with a procedural issue as opposed to a substantive issue.
"The shameful errors that plague Ms. McCarthy's case — race bias, ineffective counsel and courts unwilling to exercise meaningful oversight of the system — reflect problems that are central to the administration of the death penalty as a whole. For this to be the emblem of Texas' 500th execution is something all Texans should be ashamed of," said Levin.
McCarthy is facing the death penalty after being convicted of the 1997 robbery, battery and stabbing of Dorothy Booth. Booth was a retired professor of psychology.
According to authorities, McCarthy was also connected to two other murders.
During the appeal process, McCarthy, an African American, argued the court unfairly kept out black jurors. She added her lawyers did not contend the unfair selection during the trial or during early appeals. Booth was Caucasian.
Eleven of the 12 jurors at McCarthy’s trial were white.
People against the death penalty plan to protest outside of Walls Unit located in Huntsville. The Walls Unit is where McCarthy is expected to receive a lethal injection.
According to Gloria Rubac of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement in Houston, “The whole world is looking at Texas.”
If the death penalty is carried out, McCarthy will become the 13th woman in the United States to be executed—the fourth in Texas—since 1976. The U.S. has seen 1,300 male executions within the same time period—496 of those executions took place in Texas with Virginia coming after at approximately 400.
