Karla Faye Tucker is due to be executed at midnight tonight (Irish time) following the rejection of her appeal for clemency by the Texas Pardons and Parole Board. She will be the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War in 1863.The board's action means that Governor George W. Bush can only confirm the execution or postpone it for 30 days. The US Supreme Court in Washington has still to rule on a separate appeal against the workings of the board which has rejected all previous pleas for clemency.The board voted 16-0 for execution, with two members abstaining.Tucker's lawyer, Mr David Botsford, said he hoped the Supreme Court would hear an appeal and stop the execution.The board's chairman, Mr Victor Rodriguez, announcing the decisions, said "the horrific nature of the case carried a lot of weight".Preparations are going ahead for the execution by lethal injection at the prison in Huntsville where Tucker was flown from Gatesville Death Row yesterday.International and domestic TV crews and reporters have gathered in Huntsville for the execution.Tucker has asked for five people to witness her execution. Three relatives of the victims of the murder for which she was convicted have also asked to be present.Pleas for clemency have been made by Pope John Paul, the European Parliament, Amnesty International, the brother of one of the victims and thousands of people in the US and abroad.Convicted with a partner of the gruesome pickaxe murders of a former boyfriend and another woman in Houston in 1983, Tucker has become a born-again Christian on Death Row where she married her religious chaplain and began counselling other prisoners.