Death sentence commuted in US

WASHINGTON A woman sentenced to die by lethal injection for murdering her abusive husband will instead spend the rest of her …

WASHINGTON A woman sentenced to die by lethal injection for murdering her abusive husband will instead spend the rest of her life in jail, the Illinois state governor said yesterday on the eve of the execution.

Guinevere Garcia (37), was to become the first American woman executed since 1984 and only the second since the US Supreme Court legalised capital punishment in 1976. The Governor of Illinois, Mr Jim Edgar commuted the sentence to life imprisonment despite Garcia's decision not to appeal the sentence handed down after she killed her husband in 1991.