NCJ Number
183659
Journal
Women and Criminal Justice Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Dated: 2000 Pages: 49-66
Date Published
2000
Length
18 pages
Annotation
Case studies of the 35 women on death row in 1993 suggest that hetero-feminine image is important in engendering chivalry and thus leniency toward female offenders.
Abstract
Data on these 35 women were obtained from trial transcripts, appeal documents, case summaries produced by legal offices, and scholarly works. Media reports were from newspapers, news magazines, and crime or criminal justice magazines; these reports included case "facts" as well as more subjective representations of the women and their cases. Not surprisingly, there were distinct differences between defense and prosecutorial descriptions of the defendants, with defense representations emphasizing the troubled backgrounds of their clients and prosecutorial portrayals featuring the women's patterns of deviance. More interesting was the consistency among media sources and across media and prosecutorial accounts. Descriptions of the women and their cases were similar. Moreover, media accounts featured prosecutorial depictions of the women's gender and general deviance, along with the shocking nature of their crimes. Findings show that lesbians in particular were overrepresented in atypical death sentence cases. This report features media and prosecutorial representations of the cases of five lesbians on death row. These offenders were depicted as manly and man-hating women who occupied additional marginalized statuses and who vented their rage and irrational desire for revenge through killing. This homosexualized portrayal of female evil may affect sentencing decisions as an additional "aggravating circumstance" in an already heinous crime. 2 tables and 65 references