US executes first black woman since 1954
A woman convicted of killing a childhood friend and later murdering her lesbian lover has been executed in the United States.
She became the first black woman executed there since 1954.
Wanda Jean Allen, 41, was pronounced dead after receiving a lethal dose of drugs at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
Governor Frank Keating, an ardent death penalty supporter, cleared the way for the execution by denying a late request for a 30-day stay. A federal appeals court and the US Supreme Court also denied last-minute appeals.
Allen's request for a stay was based on the narrow issue of whether the state parole board knew enough about her education. Her attorneys have said she scored 69 on an IQ test she took in the 1970s, suggesting that she is retarded.
Prosecutors argued at a recent clemency hearing that Allen had graduated from high school and received a medical assistant certificate from Rose State College.
In 1981, Allen fatally shot childhood friend Detra Pettus during an argument, and spent two years in prison. Seven years later, she killed her lover, Gloria Leathers, whom she met in prison.
Leathers argued with Allen in a grocery store the day she died and was gunned down as she arrived at a police station to file a complaint.
Before the Allen case, 44 women had been executed in the United States since 1900. The last execution of a black woman came in 1954, when Ohio electrocuted Betty Jean Butler.
The most recent woman to die was Christina Marie Riggs, 28, executed in Arkansas last May for smothering her two young children.
