Tonight I am sad to know that in my own country a woman of limited mental abilities was put to death by the state of Virginia where I once lived in comfort and peace and good health... imagining all the while that I was dwelling among civilized people.

Of course, I understand that the woman, Teresa Lewis, age forty-one, had arranged for the murder of her husband and his stepson. I know... I know her offense was grievous, her crime horrible. I know... I know she should not have been allowed to go free in the world after she had plotted the death of two other people. I don’t need a lecture from eye-for-an-eye legalists to know that what she did was so wrong that she should not have expected mercy. It is not the death of the woman that unsettles me and makes me ashamed. It is the barbaric act of execution carried out by my countrymen that leaves me wondering why it was that Virginians and other Americans were horrified to learn that an Iranian court earlier this year had sentenced three women, one of whom was pregnant, to death by stoning.

Headlines in MAJOR NEWSPAPERS IN AMERICAN CITIES last month screamed, “Stoning to Death in Iran: A Crime Against Humanity Carried Out By the Mullahs’ Regime.” What will those same newspapers say tomorrow about the execution of Teresa Lewis in Virginia?