First woman given federal death sentence since ‘76 reinstatement fights Iowa murder conviction
By APMonday, October 19, 2009
Iowa woman with federal death sentence fights case
DES MOINES, Iowa — The first woman to receive a federal death sentence since the Supreme Court reinstated the punishment in 1976 is challenging her conviction in a quadruple Iowa murder.
Attorneys for Angela Johnson filed a petition in U.S. District Court that said she was incompetent during her 2005 trial, in part due to mental disorders, and had ineffective lawyers.
Johnson was convicted in the 1993 drug-related slayings of three adults and two children in northern Iowa. The Forest City woman was sentenced to death in four of the killings and life in prison for the fifth. The victims were found buried in shallow graves in 2000.
The 164-page petition filed this month in Sioux Falls also challenges her sentence.
The federal government last executed a woman in 1953.
