Tennessee moves closer to executing first woman

The first woman ever to be sentenced to death in Tennessee is a step closer to the death chamber today after the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals denied her habeas petition in a 2-1 decision. Nashville based Judge Gil Merritt filed the dissenting opinion.

Gaile K. Owens was convicted in Shelby County in 1986 of accessory before the fact in the 1985 murder of her husband, Ronald Owens. The man who killed her husband, Sidney Porterfield, was also sentenced to death. Owens committed her crime on February 17, 1985 and was convicted on January 4, 1986. She entered prison on February 21, 1986.