Female Defendants Research Articles

Assessing Cumulative Disadvantage against Minority Female Defendants in State Courts

Prior sentencing research, especially research on cumulative disadvantage, has mainly focused on the treatment of male defendants. Little attention has been paid to female defendants, particularly minority female defendants. Drawing on the selective chivalry, evil women, and focal concerns perspectives and using data from the 1990–2009 State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS), this paper investigates the impact of race/ethnicity for female defendants across individual and successive stages in the sentencing process. The results indicate that ethnicity does not operate via indirect or direct pathways, and therefore no evidence of cumulative disadvantage against Hispanic female defendants was detected. The results, however, do suggest that race operates through direct and indirect pathways to cause more punitive sentencing outcomes for Black female defendants compared to White female defendants, thus providing evidence of cumulative disadvantage against Black female defendants. Theoretical, research, and policy implications are discussed.

Examining Mock Jurors' Perceptions of Intimate Partner Violence Factors

The purpose of the current study was to examine whether juror gender, male-to-female or female-to-male abuse, eyewitness age (8, 12, and 16 years old), and type of intimate partner violence witnessed (physical, sexual, and emotional) influenced mock jurors' decision-making. Mock jurors (N = 1,162) read a trial transcript where the child of a married couple witnessed one of the three types of intimate partner violence, perpetrated by the husband against his wife or the wife against her husband, and answered related questions. Mock jurors were asked to render a dichotomous verdict, continuous guilt rating, and rate their perceptions of the victim, defendant, and eyewitness. Male jurors were more likely to find the defendant guilty when the defendant was female and the witness was 16 years old; additionally, female mock jurors assigned higher guilt ratings for the male defendant compared to the female defendant. Mock jurors also assigned higher guilt ratings when the abuse was physical compared to both sexual and emotional; abuse also influenced perceptions of the defendant, victim, and eyewitness. Mock jurors also were more likely to hold positive perceptions of the eyewitness when she was 16 years old compared to 8 years old. The results of the current study suggest that gender of the defendant and victim may combine to influence mock jurors' perceptions of a case involving intimate partner violence; moreover, the type of abuse witnessed by a child also may impact the child's perceived credibility.

Damned If She Does, Damned If She Doesn’t: De-Legitimization of Women’s Agency in Commonwealth v. Woodward

Mothers are never innocent. (1) When Deborah Eappen left for work on the morning of February 4, 1997, her eight-month-old child, Matthew, was alive and in the care of his au pair of three months, British nineteen-year-old Louise Woodward. (2) When she next saw Matthew, he was in the hospital, (3) the victim of severe head trauma. (4) Five days later he was dead. (5) The death of child is always disturbing event and manifest injustice. Even where an objective analysis would fail to find fault, the tragic nature of the occurrence will lead to search for blame. (6) This phenomenon is intensified in the courtroom, as the adversarial process demands the placement of blame. (7) Yet how blame is dispersed is often informed by far more than the evidence put before the jury. Although the parties before the court may not so acknowledge, deep-seated social understandings can also play role in the distribution of blame. (8) The trial that ensued from the death of Matthew Eappen was no exception. This Article will evaluate many of the social and legal factors that influence the distribution of blame when child dies. It proceeds on the assumption that the standards of criminal law are intended in part to align legal culpability with causation--that is, the defendant's proximal responsibility for the occurrence of the act. (9) Specifically, this Article explores the disparate social criticism and legal treatment of infanticidal mothers as compared with other caretakers who kill, and concludes that, in affording non-mothers excuses that are not permitted for mothers, both society and courts have disregarded traditional standards required for murder and manslaughter convictions, such as proof of intent and knowledge per that of the reasonable person. (10) As result, when faced with female defendant charged with killing child in her care, both the public and the legal system fail to give proper regard to the defendant's choices, and thus fail to accord her the appropriate level of blame. Furthermore, the objectification of the female defendant, particularly when she is mother, as symbol for large subset of women may deny her the ability to explain her own story in the courtroom. I have referred to these effects--the tendency to ignore the actual responsibility of particular defendant in light of pervasive cultural counternarrative and the application of different standards of culpability to different groups of women--as the delegitimization of women's agency. Louise Woodward was indicted for Matthew's death. (11) She was found guilty of second degree murder by jury of nine women and three men and was sentenced, under Massachusetts law, to the mandatory term of life imprisonment. (12) The defense moved for post-judgment relief, and on November 10, 1997, the trial judge vacated the sentence and reduced the jury's verdict from second degree murder to involuntary manslaughter. (13) He sentenced Woodward to 279 days in prison, which she had served in full during the trial and post-conviction process. (14) Less than nine months after Matthew's death, Louise Woodward was free woman. (15) While Woodward fought her battle in the courtroom, Deborah Eappen face[d] the court of public opinion. (16) In the wake of the death of her son, Eappen received hate mail and threatening telephone calls. (17) She was also excoriated in the press, (18) on the radio, (19) and on the Internet. (20) Deborah Eappen and her husband, Sunil, had hired Woodward in order for Eappen to continue her ophthalmology practice part-time; she worked three days week and returned home in the afternoons to nurse Matthew. (21) Although Woodward's defense rested on stalwart claim of innocence, (22) and many of her defenders suggested that Eappen, not Woodward, was guilty of abusing Matthew, (23) the primary criticism of Eappen revolved around her choice to go back to work. (24) By leaving her child with nanny in order to resume her career, Eappen became a public symbol of maternal neglect and yuppie greed, (25) who at least indirectly caused the tragedy by leaving him in incapable hands (26) and at worst deserved to have her baby die[. …

Stage model for female criminals: business school students’ perceptions of white-collar offenders

ABSTRACTWe know that half of the population in Norway is female, and we know that females represent 6% of the white-collar crime prison population. In the stage model overview, we derive percentages from the literature into the gender model to explain stepwise reduction from 50% to 6%. In our empirical research, we asked two groups of business school students to come up with their own estimates for the stages in the model for female criminals. While estimates from executive students resulted in 3% women in prison, bachelor students’ estimates resulted in 10% women in prison. The most obvious discrepancy between the research literature and our two survey groups is related to relative convictions. Based on the literature, we suggested that female defendants receive more serious convictions because they may perceive and feel more guilt for a crime, for example in terms of regret, shame and depression. Thus women may have a tendency to confess more easily. Both executive students and bachelor students disagree with this estimate of 140%, as they suggest 62% and 69% respectively. One reason for their suggestion of less serious convictions for female white-collar criminals – sometimes labelled pink-collar criminals – might be that family situation and other elements are taken into account before a verdict is passed on a woman. Another substantial discrepancy is related to detection risk. The literature suggests a low detection risk for women, but may be not as low as we estimated at 30%. Both executive and bachelor students believe that the gender difference in detection likelihood is not that formidable, as they suggest 75% and 65% respectively.

Sentencing Departures and Female Defendants: Assessing the Effects of Racial and Ethnic Threat

Prior research exploring the effects of racial and ethnic threat has largely focused on the threat posed by minority males, with little attention devoted to understanding how threat accounts for variations in punishment among racial and ethnic female defendants. Using 2003-2012 data from Florida sentencing guidelines, we examine the odds of receiving an upward and downward departure among racial and ethnic females. The results suggest that Black and Latino females sentenced in counties with larger Black populations are more likely to receive an upward departure. However, in counties with larger Latino populations, the likelihood of an upward departure decreases for Blacks and Latinos. In addition, racial and ethnic population sizes do not significantly influence the odds of a downward departure.

Drunk and Doubly Deviant? the Role of Gender and Intoxication in Sentencing Assault Offences

Little is known about how alcohol intoxication impacts sentence outcomes. This study assesses whether intoxication differentially aggravates sentence outcomes for male and female defendants of assault offences. It does so by modelling the probability of custody and sentence severity using the Crown Court Sentencing Survey, including interaction terms to account for the gendered application of intoxication as a sentencing factor. The main finding is that the aggravation afforded female defendants is twice that afforded males where intoxication in present and when controlling for relevant case characteristics. The study spotlights how cases of assault are processed through the criminal justice system and raises concerns with how gender equality is interpreted in sentencing practice with reference to alcohol intoxication.

Sex and Drugs and Revolutionary Justice: Negotiating 'Female Criminality' in the Early Soviet Courtroom

Pavel A. Vasilyev – kandidat nauk (PhD) in Russian History, Postdoctoral Fellow, Polonsky Academy for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Israel. Email: pavelv@vanleer.org.il
 This article builds on previous research on early Soviet female criminality, in particular the studies by Sharon A. Kowalsky and Dan Healey, that have demonstrated how Soviet courts and criminologists explained and handled crimes committed by females, revealing, in the process, profound ambiguities and contradictions in their attitudes towards women. However, unlike Kowalsky and Healey, I focus on an earlier period (1917–1922) and make extensive use of the under-researched archival collections of Petrograd’s local judicial institutions (People’s Courts), drawing on materials such as investigatory reports and court proceedings. Focusing on a 1919 criminal case from the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg (Tsentral’nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Sankt-Peterburga, TsGA SPb) in particular, this paper argues that in the volatile setting of the early Soviet courtroom 'female criminality' was not a clear-cut concept, but rather a malleable product of intense negotiations that involved all legal actors and centered around the contested notions of female subjectivity, socialist ideology, and the material conditions of living. Employing quasi-theatrical language, I first introduce the protagonists and describe the background of this criminal case. Then, I look at the litigation strategies that the two main female defendants employed and the different ways in which they highlighted the material embeddedness of their emotions. Finally, I examine the expressions of remorse and reflect on their role in sentencing within the wider context of the ongoing Russian Civil War and the early Soviet legal reforms. By viewing 'female criminality' as a product of open-ended negotiations and by re-emphasizing the material conditions of revolutionary Petrograd, the article provides a new perspective on gender, crime and the administration of justice in that turbulent period.

Saving damsels, sentencing deviants and selective chivalry decisions: juror decision-making in an ambiguous assault case

In sexually motivated crimes, female defendants are treated more leniently and female jurors are more punitive, relative to their male counterparts. However, few studies have examined the impact and interactions of juror, defendant and victim sex in non-sexually motivated crimes. In this study, mock jurors responded to an assault case in which the sex of both the defendant and the victim was manipulated, creating four conditions. The female jurors reported higher confidence in a guilty verdict, regardless of the defendant's and victim's sex. Additionally, the mock jurors – particularly the females – were more confident in a guilty verdict when the victim was female, regardless of the defendant's sex. Finally, the mock jurors recommended a harsher sentence for the female defendant – but only when the victim was male. These results are discussed in the context of understanding sex and gender within the criminal justice system and potential implications for juror decision-making.

Examining the Impact of Ecological Contexts on Gender Disparity in Federal Sentencing

Gender disparity in sentencing outcomes has been well established in literature. Recent research has increasingly paid attention to social contexts within which judicial decision-making occurs. This study combines these two lines of research by dissecting the nature of gender disparity through ecological lenses. Using 2008–2010 federal sentencing data, we examine the roles of religious and political conservatism in affecting gender-based sentencing disparity. We find that religious and political conservatism reduces gender disparity, with the female discount dissipating in court communities with higher levels of religious and political conservatism. We also find that the conditioning effects of both religious conservatism and political conservatism on gender disparity further interact with race, with black female defendants more likely to be influenced by religious and political conservatism than their white counterparts. Overall, this study contributes to sentencing literature by demonstrating that gender disparity is deeply entrenched in the ecological contexts of court communities.

The Impact of Neuroscience Data in Criminal Cases

Data regarding gender disparities in sentencing are contradictory. We argue that one reason for the mixed results is that female defendants who commit similar crimes are treated differently depending upon whether the defense portrays them as someone with serious mental deficiencies or as a normal person who got caught up in abnormal circumstances. We suggest that judges and juries use neuroscience data to support their preconceived notions of what “bad” women are like, even as defense counsel presents these data to support claims that their clients are less culpable. Using a case study approach, we do a pair-wise comparison of four appellate decisions in which female defendants were accused of committing similar crimes under similar circumstances, but for whom data regarding brain impairments differed substantially to determine what difference the neuroscience data might make in case outcomes. This analysis provides preliminary data suggesting that neuroscience data can act to promote a defendant’s blameworthiness even as it is used to mitigate the findings.

Judicial Politics and Sentencing Decisions

This paper investigates whether judge political affiliation contributes to racial and gender disparities in sentencing using data on over 500,000 federal defendants linked to sentencing judge. Exploiting random case assignment, we find that Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to 3.0 more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to 2.0 fewer months than similar males compared to Democratic-appointed judges, 65 percent of the baseline racial sentence gap and 17 percent of the baseline gender sentence gap, respectively. These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion. (JEL D72, J15, J16, K41, K42)

The Public Safety Assessment: A Re-Validation and Assessment of Predictive Utility and Differential Prediction by Race and Gender in Kentucky

In this paper, we assess the predictive validity and differential prediction by race and gender of one pretrial risk assessment, the Public Safety Assessment (PSA). The PSA was developed with support from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF) to reduce the burden placed on vulnerable populations at the frontend of the criminal justice system. The growing and disparate use of incarceration is one of the most pressing social issues facing the U.S. Although it has received less attention, pretrial populations are a large and growing contributor of mass incarceration. The pretrial phase is often said to be the most consequential in the criminalizing process because it is related a higher likelihood of conviction, longer terms of incarceration, and has the potential to destabilize families. Recognizing the inherent challenges in pretrial release decisions, there has been increased development and use of pretrial risk assessments. Pretrial risk assessments are developed to identify the likelihood that defendants will remain crime free and that they will return to court. There have been several critiques of risk assessments, but none have assessed differential validity or prediction using pretrial outcomes. Using a statewide dataset from Kentucky (n = 164,597) we found the PSA to have predictive validity measures in line with what are generally accepted within the criminal justice field. We applied a regression modeling approach commonly used to assess bias in test instruments (e.g., cognitive and employment testing), and found some instances of differential prediction by race. These differences suggest that the PSA scores to predict failure to appear (FTA) are moderated by race, with no significant differences found for new crimes and new violent crimes between black and white defendants. The findings show differential prediction for new violent criminal arrests between male and female defendants, similar to what was found by Skeem et al. (2016). In the end, we point to data limitations that weaken external validity, point to areas for future research, and suggest that risk assessments are not silver bullets, but rather decision-making tools that require ongoing refinement.

A Jury of Her Peers: The Impact of the First Female Jurors on Criminal Convictions

This article uses an original data set of more than 3,000 cases from 1918 to 1926 in the Central Criminal Courts of London to study the effect of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919. Implemented in 1921, this Act made women eligible to serve on English juries. Results based on a pre-post research design imply that the inclusion of women had little effect on overall conviction rates but significantly impacted conviction rates on particularly female salient cases: sex offences, violent offences with female versus male victims and female defendants charged with ‘other’ (largely abortion related) offences.

The Joint Effects of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Age on the Incarceration and Sentence Length Decisions

The current study adds to the literature examining the effects of race, ethnicity, gender, and age on sentencing decisions. The results indicate that Black and male defendants were more likely to be incarcerated in jail as opposed to receiving a probation sentence than White and female defendants. When race, ethnicity, and gender interactions were considered, it appeared that the race effect was driven by Black males’ reduced likelihood to receive probation as opposed to jail. Black females were the least likely to be jailed. Age interactions revealed that being young disadvantaged Black males but advantaged other groups. The decision to incarcerate a defendant in jail versus prison was not significantly influenced by race, ethnicity, or gender. When sentence length was examined, Black males received significantly shorter jail sentences than all groups except Black females. When age was considered, Hispanic defendants 30–39 received longer jail sentences than almost every group.

Gender Justice or Gendered Justice? Female Defendants in International Criminal Tribunals

Recent scholarship has given increasing attention to studying women’s involvement in conflict and mass violence. However, there is comparatively less discussion of the experiences of women as actors and perpetrators in conflict, and limited discussion of women as defendants in international criminal tribunals. This article explores this under-researched area. By analysing legal materials from the cases of six female defendants, this article investigates the extent to which legal discourses are shaped by stereotypes regarding femininity, conflict and peace. It identifies three gender narratives—mothers, monsters and wives—used in relation to female defendants, which highlight the incompatibility of femininity with violence, and deny women’s agency in political and military contexts. Thus, this article concludes that female defendants in international criminal tribunals are viewed through gendered lenses, and discussed in accordance with gendered themes. This gendered justice is problematic, as it reinforces patriarchal gender stereotypes, and may hinder attempts to facilitate gender justice.

Wykluczenie nierozerwalności małżeństwa i potomstwa przez pozwaną w świetle wyroku Roty Rzymskiej c. Monier z 6 marca 2015 roku

The presented sentence of the Roman Rota, to which the author provides a comment, concerns nullitatis matrimonii, which was heard by the turnus c. Monier on the grounds of exclusion by the female defendant of the indissolubility of marriage and offspring. This sentence was passed by another instance, after obtaining by the male claimant nova proposition causae (in the first and third instance the sentence was negative, in the second instance it was positive); the defendant failed to attend all three instances. However, her testimony given in c. Monier instance, fully confirmed by the claimant and witnesses, unequivocally demonstrated that she simulated marriage consent – both in reference to bonum sacamenti and bonum prolis (the reason for both simulations were her beliefs concerning marriage and its procreative purpose, which deviated from the teaching of the Church). The sentence of the Roman Rota c. Monier is an example of an in-depth assessment of means of proof, which enabled to convincingly declare the nullity of marriage.

Mother, Monster, Mrs, I: A Critical Evaluation of Gendered Naming Strategies in English Sentencing Remarks of Women Who Kill

In this article, we take a novel approach to analysing English sentencing remarks in cases of women who kill. We apply computational, quantitative, and qualitative methods from corpus linguistics to analyse recurrent patterns in a collection of English Crown Court sentencing remarks from 2012 to 2015, where a female defendant was convicted of a homicide offence. We detail the ways in which women who kill are referred to by judges in the sentencing remarks, providing frequency information on pronominal, nominative, and categorising naming strategies. In discussion of the various patterns of preference both across and within these categories (e.g. pronoun vs. nomination, title + surname vs. forename + surname), we remark upon the identities constructed through the references provided. In so doing, we: (1) quantify the extent to which members of the judiciary invoke patriarchal values and gender stereotypes within their sentencing remarks to construct female defendants, and (2) identify particular identities and narratives that emerge within sentencing remarks for women who kill. We find that judges refer to women who kill in a number of ways that systematically create dichotomous narratives of degraded victims or dehumanised monsters. We also identify marked absences in naming strategies, notably: physical identification normally associated with narrativization of women’s experiences; and the first person pronoun, reflecting omissions of women’s own voices and narratives of their lived experiences in the courtroom.

Are “Stand Your Ground” Laws Racist and Sexist? A Statistical Analysis of Cases in Florida, 2005–2013*

ObjectiveI test for racial and gender bias in the enforcement of “stand your ground” (SYG) laws, controlling for potential confounders often invoked to reject claims of racism and sexism.MethodsRegressions, simulations, and genetic matching are conducted using case‐level data from 237 incidents in the U.S. state of Florida between 2005 and 2013.ResultsControlling for potential confounders, the probability of conviction for a white defendant against a white victim is estimated to be 90 percent with much error; for a black defendant it is nearly 100 percent with little error. For a male defendant in a domestic case, the probability is 40 percent, whereas for a female defendant it is 80 percent.ConclusionsEnforcement of SYG laws appears biased against people of color in general and women specifically in the home. Policy implications are especially stark because these findings contradict recent research conducted for the U.S. Senate.

Criminalizing Vulnerability

This article aims to uncover how, in attempting to ameliorate the vulnerability of children, the offence of ‘causing or allowing the death of the child’ criminalizes abused mothers. It explores how, in the courtroom, tropes of female criminality and constructs of the ‘bad’ mother are mobilized in ways that are both gendered and ‘classed’. The effect is to silence female defendants, deprive their actions of context, and deny them agency. This argument has implications for assessing the moral and legal culpability of abused women who fail to protect their children, because it shifts the focus onto how the abuser has exploited and exacerbated the vulnerability of both mother and child. This approach also challenges law’s preoccupation with scrutinizing (and punishing) women who do not adhere to a glorified, middle-class ideal of motherhood. More broadly, by focusing on the context of a woman’s alleged ‘failure’, there opens a space within legal discourse to refute the characterization of female criminality as being either ‘mad’ or bad, and of women who engage in criminal behaviour as being either ‘virgins’ or ‘whores’. Finally, in focusing on vulnerability as a universal and unavoidable part of the human experience, gendered assumptions of autonomy and the self/other dichotomy are challenged.

Capital Jurorss Receptivity to Mental Mitigation for Female Defendants with Non-Stereotypic Gender Behavior (Kentucky, Missouri)

The study analyzes the receptivity of capital jurors to mental health mitigation in the trials of three female defendants in Kentucky and Missouri. In jury literature, female capital defendants were treated more sympathetically if they displayed female cultural stereotypes, and were more culpable if they presented aggressive non-stereotypic gendered behavior; “unemotional and hard-driving”. (Streib; White). The study compares capital trial transcript data with open-ended CJP-1 1990’s juror interviews. The Kentucky multiple-murder case involved two gay female co-defendants, with differing psychological conditions. Jurors perceived A (death) as aggressive, threatening and cold, but they perceived B (life) to be the less culpable battered partner, acting under duress from her accomplice. Jurors were unreceptive to A’s borderline personality disorder, sexual abuse and cocaine dependence. “Lots of people grow up under terrible circumstances, but they don’t go out and kill people.” “A was the more aggressive of the two women.” In the Missouri death case, jurors identified defendant’s coldness, lack of remorse, dismemberment of the victim, and non-maternal instincts with pre-meditated intentional murder. “If any woman could try to pin it on her own son, it makes it more believable that she’s capable of first degree premeditated murder. I mean that’s cold.”