Linda Carty

Linda Anita Carty (born 5 October 1958) is a Kittitian-American former schoolteacher who is on death row in Texas.

She immigrated to the United States in 1982 and is a United States citizen.

She was previously a primary school teacher.

Carty studied pharmacology at the University of Houston.

In 1992, Carty was convicted of auto theft and impersonation of an FBI agent.

She was sentenced to 10 years probation, on the condition she would work as a drug informant.

While working as an informant, she provided information leading to two arrests.

Her services ended when she was arrested on drug charges.

However, in media interviews, Carty has claimed that she was recruited by a friend from the Houston Police Department and that her work for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) helped land seizures of thousands of dollars worth of narcotics and led to the imprisonment of scores of dealers.

According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice:

"On May 16, 2001, Carty and three co-defendants invaded a home and kidnapped a 20-year-old female and her newborn son. The victim subsequently died of suffocation, but the baby was found unharmed."

Investigators initially suspected Carty after discovering that she had told people she was going to have a baby despite not appearing pregnant.

While interviewing neighbors in the apartment complex, police heard from one neighbor that she sat with Carty in a car, saw a child's car seat in the car, and was told by Carty that she was pregnant, although the witness thought Carty did not appear to be pregnant.

Police then telephoned Carty and asked her to meet with them.

She told them that a car she had rented and her daughter's car might have been used in the crime.

She was placed under arrest.

Then she directed them to a location where both cars were found: the live baby was in one, and the suffocated victim was in the back of the other.

Carty's fingerprints were in both cars.

They found various items of baby paraphernalia.

The following evidence was presented during the trial:

In February 2002, she was sentenced to death for the abduction and murder in 2001 of 20-year-old Joana Rodriguez in order to steal Rodriguez's newborn son.

Carty claimed she was framed by her co-defendants who were drug dealers because she had previously been an informant.

Carty was convicted of murder on February 19, 2002.

On February 21, she was sentenced to death by lethal injection.

The imposition of a death sentence in Texas results in an automatic direct appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

This appeal was rejected on April 7, 2004.

Carty appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

This appeal was rejected on September 19, 2009.

On 26 February 2010, Carty appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, in which the British government filed an amicus curiae brief.

However, on May 3, 2010, the Court refused to review the case, denying certiorari.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has the option to recommend clemency to the Governor of Texas.

However, such recommendations are rare.

Carty has appealed her conviction, with her most recent petition to the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari being denied by the Supreme Court on November 13, 2018.

Born in St. Kitts to Anguillan parents, Carty holds British citizenship as St. Kitts was a British colony at the time of her birth.

In 2018, she petitioned the Supreme Court again, arguing that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals "refused to consider the cumulative prejudice" of constitutional errors in her case, including ineffective assistance of counsel and the State intentionally withholding "numerous items" of exculpatory evidence; however, the Court denied certiorari.

The British government filed an amicus brief in her support.

Carty, her lawyers, and her supporters contend that she has been unjustly sentenced to death for a murder she did not commit.

Reprieve claims that her defense attorney did not present mitigating evidence.

They assert that no scientific evidence exists that establishes that she was at the scene of the crime, although her fingerprints were found in the car containing the victim's body.

Carty has claimed that she was framed by three men for her work as an informant with the Drug Enforcement Administration.