Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T14:10:08.769Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Death Penalty and Gender Discrimination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Elizabeth Rapaport
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Despite the paucity of research on the death penalty and gender discrimination, it is widely supposed that women murderers are chivalrously spared the death sentence. This supposition is fueled by the relatively small number of women who are condemned. This article argues that women are represented on contemporary U.S. death rows in numbers commensurate with the infrequency of female commission of those crimes which our society labels sufficiently reprehensible to merit capital punishment. Additionally, preliminary investigation suggests that death-sentenced women are more likely than death-sentenced men to have killed intimates, although the explanation for this disparity is not yet at hand. It is further argued, on the basis of a content analysis of state capital statutes, that there is a form of gender bias inimical to the interests of women in our capital punishment law: The death penalty is a dramatic symbol of the imputation of greater seriousness to economic and other predatory murder as compared with domestic murder.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , 1991 , pp. 367 - 383
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

I would like to thank David Baldus, Philip Cook, and Alex Keyssar for helpful conversations about gender and the death penalty, and Shari Diamond for invaluable assistance in the preparation of this article. I would also like to thank Charles Dainoff and Anna Tefft for research assistance.

References

References

ALFARO, Jose (1988) “Studying Child Maltreatment Fatalities: A Synthesis of Nine Projects,” in Besharov, D. (ed.), Protecting Children from Abuse and Neglect: Policy and Practice. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.Google Scholar
BEDAU, Hugo A. (ed.) (1982) The Death Penalty in America. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
BALDUS, David, PULASKI, Charles A., and George, WOODWORTH (1986) “Arbitrariness and Discrimination in the Administration of the Death Penalty: A Challenge to State Supreme Courts,” 15 Stetson Law Review 133.Google Scholar
BALDUS, David, George, WOODWORTH, and Charles, PULASKI Jr. (1985) “Monitoring and Evaluating Contemporary Death Sentencing Systems: Lessons from Georgia,” 18 University of California Davis Law Review 1375.Google Scholar
BALDUS, David, George, WOODWORTH, and Charles, PULASKI Jr. (1990) Equal Justice and the Death Penalty. Boston: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
BARNARD, George, VERA, Hernan, VERA, Maria, and Gustave, NEWMAN (1982) “Till Death Do Us Part: A Study of Spouse Murder,” 10 Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law 271.Google Scholar
BLOCK, Carolyn (1985) “Lethal Violence in Chicago over Seventeen Years: Homicides Known to the Police 1965–81.” Chicago: Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority.Google Scholar
BLUMSTEIN, A., COHEN, J., MARTIN, S., and M., TONRY (eds.) (1983) “Determinants of Sentences,” 1 Research on Sentencing: The Search for Reform. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
CORNELL LAW REVIEW (1984) “Capital Punishment in 1984: Abandoning the Pursuit of Fairness and Consistency,” 69 Cornell Law Review 1129.Google Scholar
DARO, Deborah, and Leslie, MITCHEL (1989) “Child Abuse Fatalities Continue to Rise: The Results of the 1988 Annual Fifty State Survey.” Report prepared for the National Center of Child Abuse Prevention Research, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
EKLAND-OLSON, Sheldon (1988) “Structured Discretion, Racial Bias and the Death Penalty,” 69 Social Science Quarterly 853.Google Scholar
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (1989) Uniform Crime Reports. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
GILLESPIE, Cynthia (1989) Justifiable Homicide. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.Google Scholar
GROSS, Samuel, and Robert, MAURO (1989) Death and Discrimination. Boston: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
LITTLETON, Christine A. (1987) “Restructuring Sexual Equality,” 75 California Law Review 1279.Google Scholar
MINOW, Martha (1987) “Foreword: Justice Engendered” 101 Harvard Law Review 10.Google Scholar
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND (1991) Death Row U.S.A. (January).Google Scholar
NAKELL, Barry, and Kenneth, HARDY (1987) The Arbitrariness of the Death Penalty. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
POLLAK, Otto (1950) The Criminality of Women. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
RAPAPORT, Elizabeth (1990) “Some Questions About Gender and the Death Penalty,” 20 Golden Gate University Law Review 501.Google Scholar
REPELLA, J. (1989) “Prosecution of Child Abuse Deaths—Statutory Framework.” Alexandria, VA: National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse.Google Scholar
SELLIN, Thorsten (1980) The Penalty of Death. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
STRIEB, Victor (1990) “The Death Penalty for Female Offenders,” 58 Cincinnati Law Review 845.Google Scholar
STRIEB, Victor (1991) “Capital Punishment for Female Offenders: Present Female Death Row Inmates and Death Sentences and Executions of Female Offenders, January 1, 1973, to March 1, 1991.” Unpublished, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland, Ohio.Google Scholar
U.S. BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS (1988) Report to the Nation on Crime and Justice. 2d ed. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS (1989) Capital Punishment 1988. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS (1990) “Profile of Felons Convicted in State Courts, 1986.” Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
WILLIAMS, Wendy (1982) “The Equality Crisis: Some Reflections on Culture, Courts, and Feminism,” 7 Women's Rights Law Reporter 175.Google Scholar
WOLFGANG, Marvin (1958) Patterns in Criminal Homicide. New York: John Wiley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Cases Cited

Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Statutes Cited

Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-703(F)(4) (Supp. 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cal. Penal Code § 190.2(a)(11)–(13) (West Supp. 1990).Google Scholar
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 16-11-103(6)(a) (Supp. 1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fla. Stat. Ann. § 921.141(5)(b)–(d) (West Supp. 1989).Google Scholar
Ga Code Ann. § 17-10-30(b)(1), (3), (8) (1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 532.025(2)(a)(6) (Baldwin 1989).Google Scholar
La. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 905.4(A)(7) (West Supp. 1989).Google Scholar