Women and the Death Penalty

There is a double standard in the American justice system when the punishment involves the death penalty as it relates to men versus women. According to the Justice Department, roughly one in ten homicides are committed by women, and they are more likely to murder someone close to them.  Women are more likely to be related to the victim than their male counterparts, and women are also less likely to plan out the crime before it is committed. (ABC News, 2009).  This can be a contributing factor in a jury’s decision on whether to exercise the death penalty in the case of women.  It is difficult for the American public to come to terms with the fact that women can commit just as heinous crimes as men in today’s society, and rarely sentence them to the same fate as their counterparts.

The death penalty in general has been debated for years in the United States, and this debate brings in to question the Constitutionality regarding cruel and unusual punishment and the Eighth Amendment.  On April 16, 2008, in Baze v. Rees, The Supreme Court of the United States ruled the death penalty to be constitutional, and not a violation of the protection against cruel and unusual punishment.  The drug cocktail used by 30 of the 36 states that use the death penalty are sodium thiopental, which induces unconsciousness when given in the specified amounts and thereby ensures that the prisoner does not experience any pain associated with the paralysis and cardiac arrest caused by the second and third drugs, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride.  It is also required that if the prisoner is not unconscious within 60 seconds after the sodium thiopental’s delivery, a new dose will be given at a secondary injection site before the second and third drugs are administered (Baze v. Rees, 2008).  Chief Justices Roberts, Kennedy, and Alito stated that in order for the death penalty to constitute a violation, there must be a substantial risk of serious harm. 

There has also been the debate regarding the death penalty in general, that God is the ultimate punisher, and man has no right to act on His behalf by carrying out a death sentence.  One question posed is why is it ok for the law to take a life, but not the individual who took a life in the first place?  It is deemed hypocritical when one side can in essence commit murder, yet the other side is punished to the most extreme because they have done just that.  Where should the line be drawn, and why does man have that right to decide just where that line should be?  Many people believe that prisons are there to house these individuals, and the punishment of life in prison should be sufficient for those who commit the ultimate crime. 

While it seems like a double standard, and God is the ultimate punisher, the Bible also says “Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed.  God was lenient on the death penalty, and He gives government the authority to decide when capital punishment is due (The Bible).  It can also be argued  regarding the separation of church and state, that religion does not have a place in deciding whether it is right to put someone to death for heinous crimes, be it a man or a woman.

Out of the 2.5 million people incarcerated in the United States, approximately 105,000 are women. As of January 1, 2010, there were 61 women on death row. These women comprise 1.87% of the total death row population (Kravitz, 2010).  Nearly two-thirds of the women on Death Row were convicted of killing family members or people they knew—19 spouses,

10 children, three both spouse and children, three other family members, and six friends or acquaintances, bringing the total number of women who had killed people they knew to 41.  Twenty-five of the women had killed strangers (ACLU, 2004).

Many times, juries and personal feelings have an effect on the outcome of a trial. While only eleven women have been executed in the United States since 1976, it is understood that they are in prison under much different circumstances than men are.  Women tend to have a higher rate of trauma in their personal lives than men, such as domestic or sexual abuse.  It is also documented that women are more likely to access resources, such as mental health counseling than men are. This in turn raises the question if extenuating circumstance should be taken into account when sentencing any individual after they have been convicted of a crime. Should we sentence the behavior or should we sentence the gender?  We as a civilized society, feel as if we have to protect the woman because of past abuses and reason this as an acceptable circumstance for not issuing the ultimate penalty for a crime that would justify a man receiving that same penalty had the sex of the accused been different.  (Bedard, 2010).

The reasons for committing murder when it comes to men versus women are at complete opposites of the spectrum. Men are more likely to murder out of revenge, anger, jealousy of children who are getting involved with others, difficulty adjusting to being a parent, or even a long tradition of abuse in the family that just continues, or stresses caused by his family situation.  Women on the other hand are more likely to murder out of love for a man who does not want children, so she feels if the child is gone, the man will accept her into his life. Women are also more likely to murder a family member than a man.  Men are more likely to murder the family as a whole than a woman is (Ramsland).

While society sees the death penalty as the ultimate punishment, there is still a stigma with putting a woman to death when she is found guilty of murder. Women are still considered the weaker sex, and we as human beings feel the need to protect even after a crime has been committed. Women are the givers of life, and because of that it is harder to take that life away in the end.  Women are also more likely to show remorse for their crimes than their male counterparts, and this can also sway a jury in to believing they are punishing them twice for the crime they have committed, allowing them to let their personal feelings get in the way of the duty they have to find justice (Bedard, 2010).

            When posed the question as to why women are less likely to receive the death penalty, Major Ken Bundrick, a 25 year veteran with Crestview Police Department, in Crestview, Florida, stated, “Men receive the death penalty more than women for a number of reasons. Men normally commit more violent murders which provoke human emotions in both judge and jury; women are still viewed by normal society as a weaker sex thus being "protected" from the death penalty, and basic animal instinct prevents a desire to kill the mother, nurturer and/or breeder of the species. The death penalty is a would be a deterrent if used properly, ie: a swift and public execution of the death penalty would have some degree of deterrence; however, I doubt most people that commit Capital Murder really think about the penalty. Today, the death penalty could quite possibly have a detrimental effect due to a jury's thoughts and beliefs. That being said, there are two things the death penalty does bring to the table: 1) 0% recidivism from the convicted and 2) victim vindication.”

            Unless the perpetrators life is also in danger, there is no excuse to take someone else’s life.  It is reasonable to be able to protect oneself and their domain from the force necessary to insure security, but when someone takes an innocent life, punishment should be swift and just.  In today’s society, we have lost the site of the victim when it comes to a trial; in they tend to be forgotten in the end.  When we offer more rights to those that have broken the law than those the crime was perpetrated against, we have a broken system which needs to be corrected.  Justice is supposed to be blind, and that blindness should also recognize that the gender of the convicted should have no relevance on the punishment handed down. When it seems a victim would have been better off had their perpetrator been a man than a woman, for justice to be served, it is almost unfair to those who were not lucky enough to have a male individual be the one to take their life.  This is not what the justice system is supposed to be about.  It is supposed to be equal justice for every citizen of this country.

While men far out rank the number of women who receive the death penalty, the societal curse of sentencing a woman to death tends to go back to barbaric times in that women have been tortured to death since early times.  No one is above the law, and no matter race, religion, or sex, everyone should be treated as equals.  There is one law of the land and everyone should be held accountable for actions taken on the same level.  If we continue to practice discrimination, even when it involves the death penalty in society, and allow women to have a pass because of their past or even their gender, then what kind of growth can we say that we have obtained over the course of time? (Conrad, 2009).  We as women have to start taking responsibility for our actions, and we should be willing to face the punishment for those actions, no matter what that may be.  Abuse and suffering from the past is not an excuse for murder and the fact that women get away with it more often than men is a travesty against justice!

References

ACLU. (n.d.). Social Factors in Death Penalty Cases. In The forgotten population
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Baze et al. v. Rees, No. 321, slip op. at 337 (Apr. 16, 2008).

Bedard, L. (2010, November 22). Women and the death penalty [Should women be

 treated differently from men in the American criminal justice system? ].
            Retrieved July 19, 2011, from CorrectionsOne website:
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Conrad, E. (n.d.). Women, Frailty, and the Death Penalty. Retrieved July 19,
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Genesis. (n.d.). In The Bible (9:6).

Kravitz, R. (2010, April 5). Women in prisons. Retrieved August 5, 2011, from
     http://www.corrections.com/news/article/23873-women-in-prisons

Ramsland, K. (n.d.). Fathers who kill. Retrieved August 5, 2011, from
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Romans. (n.d.). In The Bible (13:1-7).

Why do some women kill? [Television broadcast]. (2009, April 14). New York, New
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