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STUDIES: Death Penalty for Female Offenders

Posted: July 12, 2009
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The latest issue of the report, “Death Penalty for Female Offenders,” has been released by Professor Victor Streib of the Ohio Northern University School of Law.  The report includes national trends regarding women and the death penalty and case details about individual female death row inmates from 1973 through June 30, 2009.  The report notes that while women account for one in ten murder arrests (10%), only one in forty-nine death sentences imposed at trial are for women (2%); women account for one in sixty-two people on death row (1.6%), and only one in one hundred and six (0.9%) of people actually executed in the modern era have been women.  Additionally, almost half of the women now on death row were sentenced in domestic cases, with the victims being husbands, boyfriends, or their children.  The leading states for sentencing women to death in the modern era are Texas (19), California (18), Florida (17), and North Carolina (16).  The full report may be read here.

ARTICLES:The Story of a Death Row Inmate Who Wanted to Die

Posted: June 10, 2008
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In 1996, Illinois Governor Jim Edgar commuted the death sentence of Guin Garcia to life without parole, even though Garcia herself had stopped fighting for her life. Garcia would have been the first woman executed in the U.S. in twelve years. She had been convicted of killing the man who had physically abused her, but she had dropped her appeals because she said she was done “begging for her life.” Chicago Sun-Times reporter Carol Marin followed Garcia's case after the commutation and recently wrote about the changes in Garcia's life.

NEW RESOURCES: Women and the Death Penalty

Posted: February 18, 2008
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Victor Streib, who has been researching the subject of women and the death penalty for 20 years, has released an updated version of his report “Death Penalty for Female Offenders.” In his research, Prof. Streib, a professor at Elon University School of Law in North Carolina and Ohio Northern University’s Pettit College of Law, has found that women are significantly less likely than men to receive a death sentence, possibly because prosecutors seem less inclined to seek the death penalty against female offenders.

Women News and Developments - 2007

Posted: January 04, 2008
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ARBITRARINESS: Woman Faces Federal Death Sentence While Triggerman Receives 17 Years

ARBITRARINESS: Woman Faces Federal Death Sentence While Triggerman Receives 17 Years

Posted: July 18, 2007
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Donna Moonda (pictured) is facing the federal death penalty in Ohio for hiring a man to kill her husband.  The person who actually shot and killed the victim, Damian Bradford, received a sentence of only 17.5 years in exchange for his testimony against Moonda.  Moonda and Bradford were convicted in separate trials of orchestrating and carrying out the plot to kill Dr. Gulam Moonda in an alledged effort to share his estate. The two defendants met in a drug rehabilitation center.

Texas Court Grants Stay on Basis of Possible Innocence

Posted: June 12, 2007
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The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed Cathy Henderson's scheduled execution of June 13 and has remanded her case back to the trial court for a more careful review of new scientific evidence that casts doubt on the state's claim that she intentionally killed Brandon Baugh, an infant in her care. The appeals court decision was largely based on a recent affidavit submitted by former Travis County medical examiner Dr. Roberto Bayardo (pictured), whose expert testimony was crucial to the state's case against Henderson. In his new sworn statement, Dr.

Texas Medical Examiner No Longer Stands by Testimony that sent Woman to Death Row

Posted: June 05, 2007
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Just weeks before Texas is scheduled to execute Cathy Henderson (pictured) for the murder of a child that she was babysitting, the medical examiner whose testimony helped send her to death row has said he no longer stands by his original opinion that the child's death resulted from an intentional act on Henderson's part.

Two New Federal Death Sentences in Non-Death Penalty State

Posted: May 29, 2007
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On May 29, 2007, a jury in Charleston, West Virginia, recommended death sentences for George Lecco and Valerie Friend for the murder of Carla Collins in order to protect their drug ring.  Prosecutors maintained that Lecco arranged to have Collins killed and that Friend did the shooting in 2005.  Formal sentencing was scheduled for August 23.  The judge is required to follow the jury's recommendation.  These are the first federal death sentences in West Virginia since the federal law was reinstated in 1988.  (Charleston Daily Mail, May 29, 2007).  West Virginia is the sixth state

Texas High Court Dismisses Woman's Death Sentence As Unsupported by the Evidence

Posted: May 24, 2007
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In an important ruling, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has thrown out the death sentence of Kenisha Berry (pictured), who was sentenced to death in 1998 for the murder of her infant son, Malachi. The 5-4 decision stated that Jefferson County prosecutors misstated the special issue presented to jurors regarding Berry's likelihood of being a future danger to society, one of the key questions Texas jurors consider when they are deliberating a death sentence.

Upcoming Texas Execution Raises Questions of Appropriate Sentence

Posted: March 20, 2007
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UPDATE: Henderson's execution date of April 18 was stayed in order to consider new defense motions in the case. A new execution date of June 13 was tentatively set.
Upcoming Texas Execution Raises Questions of
Appropriate Sentence
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