On July 14, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen com­mut­ed the death sen­tence of Gaile Owens to life in prison. Owens, who was sen­tenced to death in 1986 for hir­ing a man to kill her hus­band, had accept­ed a deal to plead guilty to the crime in exchange for a sen­tence of life in prison. However, the man who did the killing refused to plead guilty, and pros­e­cu­tors then rescind­ed the deal for Owens. Both co-defen­dants were sen­tenced to death. In decid­ing to com­mute her sen­tence to life in prison, Governor Bredesen said the deci­sion was based in part on the plea bar­gain that was lat­er with­drawn and the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Owens was abused by her hus­band. Governor Bredesen said, ​“Nearly all the sim­i­lar cas­es we looked at result­ed in life-in-prison sen­tences.” John Seigenthaler, for­mer­ly on staff at the Tennessean, said of her case, ​“As heinous as the crime was, the record of how Tennessee has dealt with sim­i­lar cas­es over the last cen­tu­ry makes it clear that her death would have been a ter­ri­ble mis­car­riage of justice.”

Owens may be eli­gi­ble for parole in a few years. 

(C. Carey and C. Sisk, ​“Governor com­mutes sen­tence of Gaile Owens,” The Tennessean, July 14, 2010). See also Arbitrariness, Clemency, and Women and the Death Penalty. Since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed, 248 inmates have had their death sen­tence com­mut­ed, includ­ing 171 com­mu­ta­tions grant­ed by Illinois Governor George Ryan in 2003.

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