Stereotypes Put Innocent Women on Death Row

The justice system in America is not fair. When a woman commits a crime (or she’s accused), the police and court use information about her life that doesn’t prove her guilt. We’ll hear details about infidelity, housekeeping skills, and career choices. We rarely hear about why she committed the crime without gender-based suggestions, pointing out she wasn’t living up to the ideal woman/wife.

I read about a case a few days ago. The entire article painted the accused as a hypersexual woman who didn’t clean her house. While that may be grounds for divorce, it doesn’t prove she murdered her husband or children. The sad truth, this is the way many prosecutors build cases. They put many women on death row for not living up to society’s view of what a woman should be.

2% Of Death Row Population Are Women

Although less than 2% of the death row population is women, they still face challenges getting their sentences overturned. They only commit 10% of the crimes nationwide. When they commit a crime, they rarely rape, assault, or kidnap their victims.

Many of their crimes are in the heat of the moment, crimes of passion. It is a onetime offense that has a low probability of it recurring. They don’t pose a risk to society.

One of those cases is Betty Broderick. She killed her ex-husband and his new wife. She alleges her ex-husband emotionally abused her, and she felt unsafe. No one knows if her account is the truth. However, one detail most can agree on is Betty poses no risk to society. However, court labeled her unhinged and insane. She has been in the slammer for over 30 years.

When women kill, the crimes are usually absent of aggravating circumstances, such as burglary, rape, kidnapping, or targeting public officials. These are the factors prosecutors look at to qualify for capital murder charges. Even though those factors are absent from most women’s crimes, they still charge them with capital murder and seek the death penalty.

One way prosecutors work to get a jury and judge to sentence women to death is they demolish the idea the accused has any feminine traits. They do this by saying she keeps a dirty house, she’s a cheater, or attacking her physical appearance.

Research studies prove judges are less likely to send a woman to death row if they think she fits the ideals the society holds for women. The only way around that is to prove she is unfaithful, a terrible housekeeper, or a negligent mother.

When men are on trial, we rarely hear about any of these issues. They stick to factors and let the jury decide if they deserve to die for their crimes.

“In a death penalty case, the law allows certain kinds of aggravating factors to make a case eligible for execution and to persuade the jury that they should vote to execute somebody,” said Dr. Mary Atwell in an interview with Prism. “In those cases, those factors do not include being a bad mother, or not taking care of your children or not keeping your house clean or being unfaithful to your husband or any of those kinds of things, which came up repeatedly in the cases that I looked at. It’s really that issue that I think is the most troubling, and it’s persistent.”

Stereotypes Can Send A Innocent Woman To Prison

They often describe defendants to the jury as promiscuous, bad mothers, terrible wives, or hyper-masculine (usually describing same-sex relationships). For women of color, they face more challenges when you add the complicated race issue to the mix.

One case that used a woman’s sexuality to convict her to death was Brenda Andrews. She is on death row in Oklahoma. In 2004, they put her on death row, alongside her boyfriend, James Pavitt, for the murder of her husband. During the trial, the prosecution painted her out to be an unfaith wife, who had many affairs and didn’t care about her husband’s safety.

They called her former lovers and friends to testify to prove she wasn’t a faithful wife, and questioned her character. They presented evidence that she packed sexy clothes for a trip to Mexico just after her husband died. They used this information to prove she was a bad person, suggesting it meant she committed murder.

They use the same tactics to convict mothers of murdering their children. They point out how they didn’t clean the house for their kids and suggest they were terrible parents. Without proof, they can convince the jury that a terrible mother wouldn’t think twice about killing her children.

Lisa Montgomery, executed last year, faced some of the same stereotypes. She stood accused of being a bad person who didn’t fit the society’s view on what a woman should look like.

“At the sentencing phase of her trial, her defense team argued that she loved her children, which is true and the prosecutor came back and said, ‘She loves her children? Right, she keeps a filthy home, she doesn’t cook, she doesn’t clean, she doesn’t go to her children’s games,’” said Sandra Babcock, faculty director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide and an attorney who represented Montgomery. “You never would hear that argument in the case of a man. And the shocking thing is that this is at the penalty phase of a capital case. So they’re making these arguments as part of a rationale for why this woman should be exterminated [SIC] from the human race.”

In cases where the victim was male, prosecution paints them as manipulative and using sexuality to get what they want. They paint women in same-sex relationships are deviants and unfit for society.

Trial By Media

The media can convict someone before they step foot in the courtroom. They will label them as a black widow, damsel of death, or triggered woman. It can affect the ability for women to get a fair trial, especially in capital cases.

It doesn’t help criminal defense lawyers often will seek book deals for their clients before conviction. It just adds to the unfair stereotyping women face.

Many times, women defendants are victims of abuse. In recent cases, judges rarely allow any abuse claims to be part of their defense. It leaves these women without a defense. If you take out the abuse, which is what led to the crime, the defendant appears to be a cold-blooded murder.

It’s time to make our justice system fair for both women and men. For that matter, it’s time to end the racial divide in the court systems. White men should have the same sentences as black men. Until we fix these issues, our judicial system will remain broken.

***

Originally published on Medium.