A recent study by Professor Steven Shatz of the University of San Francisco Law School and Naomi Shatz of the New York Civil Liberties Union suggests that gender bias continues to exist in the application of the death penalty, and that this bias has roots in the historic notion of chivalry. In a review of 1,300 murder cases in California between 2003 and 2005, the authors found gender disparities with respect to both defendants and victims in the underlying crime. The study revealed that the influence of gender-based values was particularly pronounced in certain crimes: gang murders (few death sentences), rape murders (many death sentences), and domestic violence murders (few death sentences). The authors concluded: "The present study confirms what earlier studies have shown: that the death penalty is imposed on women relatively infrequently and that it is disproportionately imposed for the killing of women. Thus, the death penalty in California appears to be applied in accordance with stereotypes about women’s innate abilities, their roles in society, and their capacity for violence. Far from being gender neutral, the California death penalty seems to allow prejudices and stereotypes about violence and gender, chivalric values, to determine who lives and who dies."
Chelsea Richardson (pictured), the first woman in Tarrant County, Texas, to be sentenced to death, may soon be serving a life sentence instead. Six years after her conviction, Tarrant County District Attorney Joe Shannon agreed with Richardson’s appellate attorney that the prosecutor at her trial withheld evidence that could have affected the jury's sentence. This development would mark the second time in three years that the outcome of a death penalty case was changed due to misconduct by former prosecutor Mike Parrish. D.A. Shannon said, "This office will not be a party to the infliction of death as a punishment 
The latest edition of the Death Penalty Information Center's series of podcasts, DPIC on the Issues, is now available. This podcast addresses Women and the Death Penalty, including a short history of women executed in America, the possibility of gender bias, and differences between women and men in support of the death penalty. Generally, this series of podcasts offers brief, informative discussions of key death penalty issues. Other recent