Capital Punishment of Female Offenders: Present Female Death Row Inmates and Death Sentences and Executions of Female Offenders, January 1, 1973, to June 30, 1997

• NCJ Number: 175249
• Author(s): V L Streib
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 18 pages
• Corporate Author: Ohio Northern University
• Sale Source: Ohio Northern University; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Data on the imposition and administration of capital punishment for female offenders addresses the number of female death row inmates, death sentences, and executions for the period January 1, 1973, to June 30, 1997.

Abstract

Although the constitutionality of current-era death-penalty statutes (post-Furman death-penalty statutes) was not recognized formally by the U.S. Supreme Court until 1976 in "Gregg," and actual executions did not begin until 1977, the current era of death-penalty sentencing began in 1973. The tabular data presented in this report come from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the author's own research. A total of 114 female death sentences have been imposed during the study period, approximately 2 percent of the total estimated 6,030 death sentences for all offenders. Despite some fluctuations, particularly in the early years of this period, the death- sentencing rate for female offenders was typically about 5 per year beginning in the 1980s. In 1989 this annual death- sentencing rate doubled for reasons unknown. In 1990 and 1991, the sentencing rate seemed to have returned to just above the pre-1989 levels. Then the rate surged to 10 in 1992, portending an annual rate again nearly double that of the 1980s. Four of the 10 female death sentences in 1992, however, were imposed on the same person (Aileen Wuornos in Florida), leaving only 6 other female death sentences during 1992. Total female death sentences then returned to the normal level: 6 in 1993, 5 in 1994, and 7 in 1995. The number of female offenders sentenced to prison death rows each year remains under 0.2 percent of the approximately 3,700 women sentenced to prison each year. Of the 114 death sentences for women, only 47 sentences remain currently in effect. One such sentence resulted in an execution (Velma Barfield), and another 66 death sentences were reversed or commuted to life imprisonment. 4 tables and appended case summaries for current female death-row inmates, June 30, 1997.