Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1997
Journal Title
Texas Law Review
ISSN
0040-4411
Abstract
This Note explores the effect on women of this process of demarcating boundaries of unacceptable behavior within the context of a capital punishment system. Additionally, this Note explores the Eighth Amendment implications of these boundaries within capital jurisprudence. Part I examines the two most prominent theories put forth by feminist scholars to explain sentencing patterns among female capital offenders-the "chivalry theory" and the "evil woman" theory. These theories attempt to account for both the limited use of the death penalty for women and the presence of certain women on death row. In Part II, this Note considers the limited empirical data available from women's capital punishment trials and attempts to ground the theories discussed in Part I in the practical realities of these cases. This Part considers the characteristics of death-sentenced offenders with an eye towards the constitutional restrictions on the imposition of the death penalty. It considers traits used in sentencing women and examines the extent to which they are "gendered" in women's trials.
First Page
1413
Last Page
1453
Num Pages
41
Volume Number
75
Issue Number
6
Publisher
University of Texas School of Law
Recommended Citation
Jenny E. Carroll,
Images of Women and Capital Sentencing Among Female Offenders: Exploring the Outer Limits of the Eighth Amendment and Articulated Theories of Justice,
75
Tex. L. Rev.
1413
(1997).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/2070