Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Fall 2024

Keywords

Gender bias, Women on death row, Women and criminal justice

Disciplines

Civil Rights and Discrimination | Criminal Procedure | Law and Gender

Abstract

This Article, for the first time, grapples with the influence of gender on decision makers in women’s capital trials. Part I provides a brief overview of scholarship examining the experiences of women offenders in the criminal legal system. Part II explains how gender inflects the prosecutions of women charged with capital crimes, drawing on scholarly research as well as a data set comprised of the trial transcripts of every woman currently on death row in the United States. Part III explores how the gender of key decision makers could affect the quality of justice received by women capital defendants. I conclude that there is good reason to believe that the overwhelming “maleness” of capital murder prosecutions affects the quality of justice that women receive.

Comments

Published in a special issue of William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice: Equal Dignity in the Eyes of the Law: How Identity Shapes the Legal Practice, Impacts Society, and Influences Precedent.

Download

Share

COinS