Gender Disparity in Death Penalty Sentencing

Abstract

Although race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status garner the majority of attention when considering bias within the US capital sentencing system, a less frequently mentioned yet equally pervasive disparity concerns gender bias. Women appear to be the “favored” gender under the US death penalty scheme, as they are subject to death sentences at a much lower rate than are men (referred to as the gender‐of‐offender effect) and female victims' deaths are punished more harshly than the deaths of their male counterparts (referred to as the gender‐of‐victim effect). Scholars contend that the underlying causes for this disparity include the influential role of media coverage in prosecutors' decisions to seek the death penalty as well as the powerful impact that chivalry has had on the development of American jurisprudence.