Choosing the "Worst-of-the-Worst" among Female Capital Defendants

• In Event: Capital Punishment Decision-Making and Discretionary Issues

Abstract

This paper is part of a larger project that seeks to uncover the factors that condition the severity of treatment of offenders who have taken a child's life. This part of the research focuses on women offenders since women are over-represented among child homicide perpetrators, which is an exception to the general trend of limited female involvement in violent crime. The paper examines data from the state of Maryland on all death eligible murders perpetrated by women and prosecuted between 1978-1999. Thirty seven women have committed a capital offense, five of them have taken a child's life. An attempt is made to illuminate the factors that influence the state attorney's decision to file a formal notification to seek a death sentence in a homicide case perpetrated by a woman. After contrasting capital cases with child victims and cases with older victims, the findings suggest that prosecutors need to overcome a number of challenges to successfully portray female child homicide defendants as death-worthy.

Author

• Rita Poteyeva, James Madison University