Executive Summary of The Forgotten Population: A Look at Death Row in the
United States Through the Experiences of Women

Since 1973, 148 women have been sentenced to death in the United States.
As of December 2004, there are 50 women on Death Row. These women vary in
age from 22 to 73 years old and have been on Death Row for periods ranging
from a few months to nearly 20 years. While much attention has been paid
to women who have already been executed, such as Aileen Wournos and Karla
Faye Tucker, little is known about the experiences of women who are living
on Death Row.

Executive Summary

Since 1973, 148 women have been sentenced to death in the United States.
As of December 2004, there are 50 women on Death Row. These women vary in
age from 22 to 73 years old and have been on Death Row for periods ranging
from a few months to nearly 20 years. While much attention has been paid
to women who have already been executed, such as Aileen Wournos and Karla
Faye Tucker, little is known about the experiences of women who are living
on Death Row.

The Forgotten Population reviews the cases of 66 women, including the 56
women who were living on Death Row at some time between April 2002 and
December 2003 and the ten women who were executed between 1984 and 2002.
This report marks the first time anyone has surveyed women about their
experiences on Death Row. The Forgotten Population was produced by three
programs of the American Civil Liberties Union -- the Capital Punishment
Project, Women’s Rights Project and National Prison Project -- with the
National Criminal Justice Program of the American Friends Service
Committee and the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered
Women.

The report finds that women’s experiences on Death Row mirror many of the
problems that have been documented in the cases of men condemned to death,
such as inadequate defense counsel, official misconduct, poverty,
alcoholism, drug abuse, mental retardation and mental illness. However, in
addition to these problems, numerous women on death row have also suffered
abuse and domestic violence. Moreover, once incarcerated, women face
unique challenges living on Death Row, including mistreatment and lack of
access to necessary services that are generally available to their male
counterparts. A particularly disturbing finding of the report is the
degree to which many of these women live in virtual isolation, which often
leads to psychosis or exacerbates existing mental illnesses.

The Forgotten Population makes 13 recommendations to improve conditions
for women living on Death Row and to ensure that women receive fair and
adequate defense counsel when charged with capital offenses. The
recommendations include:

- establishing programs to train defense counsel to litigate issues of
abuse;
- providing adequate support and assistance to abused women;
- integrating women on Death Row into regular prison units;
- providing women on Death Row with opportunities to work;
- adopting prison staffing policies to prevent abuse;
- amending the Prison Litigation Reform Act to provide women who are
sexually abused while in prison with access to the courts.

Following are some of the highlights from the report:

- Women on death row are likely to have received ineffective defense
counsel or have been subjected to official misconduct by prosecutors
during their trials. Because of such unfair and inadequate defense, two
death-sentenced women have been found innocent and exonerated. A third
woman, Frances Newton, awaits execution in Texas. Her trial attorney did
not interview any witnesses in preparation for trial. The majority of the
evidence against her was forensic evidence processed at the thoroughly
discredited Houston crime lab. She has always maintained her innocence.

- Nearly two-thirds of the women had experienced regular, ongoing abuse as
children and as adults. In many cases, there was independent evidence
available to verify these claims, but some defense attorneys failed to
present this information during trial and juries were unable to take this
into consideration before sentencing the women to death.

- Of the cases reviewed, 33 women acted with at least one other person. In
22 of those, the co-defendant received a sentence other than death - even
in cases in which they appeared to be equally culpable.

- Nearly two-thirds of the women on Death Row were convicted of killing
family members or people they knew. No one has calculated how many of the
men on Death Row are there for killing family members, but from what we
know of the general prison population, women who are in prison are more
likely than men to have killed family members or intimates.

In nearly one-third of the 66 cases reviewed, women on Death Row were
accused of committing homicide by their intimate partner, usually a man
(16 were accused by a man, one was accused by a woman), whose
self-interest was served by blaming the woman for the crime. Eleven of the
women were sentenced to death for a homicide that they claimed to have
committed under threat of coercion by a male perpetrator in order to
protect themselves or their children.

- In addition to enduring the harsh conditions of prison life, most women
on Death Row live in almost complete isolation, rarely leaving their
cells, and most of their infrequent human contact involves
sometimes-hostile guards.

- One in five women in our survey reported that they had been assaulted or
sexually harassed while in prison. A third of the respondents said that
corrections officers observed them when they used the toilet, showered, or
dressed.

- Although nearly all of the women who responded to our survey reported
that they had been addicted to drugs or alcohol at the time of their
arrest, two-thirds said that no drug or alcohol treatment was available at
their prison. In addition, although more than half reported that they had
been victims of physical or sexual abuse, fewer than half of the
facilities offered any counseling for sexual, physical, or emotional
abuse.

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Source : American Civil Liberties Union

http://www.aclu.org/DeathPenalty/DeathP ... 17086&c=68


URL to dowload ACLU report on Women Death Row Conditions
http://www.aclu.org/DeathPenalty/DeathP ... 17085&c=68