NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The first woman on Tennessee's death row is asking the state Supreme Court for mercy because she says she suffered from "battered-wife syndrome."
However, prosecutors said Gaile Owens prevented her own lawyers from making that argument at her trial.
The state has asked the court to set a date for Owens' execution after she hired someone to kill her husband in 1986. Owens wants the sentence reduced to life in prison.
In a response filed by the state Tuesday, prosecutors said Owens refused to undergo the mental evaluation her defense requested to prove a battered wife defense.
She also refused to testify in either the guilt phase or the penalty phase.
She did stop her attorneys from filing a battered woman argument at the original trial stating that she didn't want her sons to know that their father was an abuser. I guess she has changed her mind. Her son has a blog, http://www.hewilldeliver.com/, where he talks of visiting her for the first time only recently and that they did not talk of his fathers murder.
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