User:Awhistorywiki/sandbox

DYK blurb: Did you know...capital punishment in the united states has executed 575 women, which represents only 3.6% of total executions carried out by law since 1608?

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE US CHANGES

(under) History

Add separate section: Women and Capital Punishment

In 1632, 24 years after the first recorded male execution in the colonies, Jane Champion became the first woman to be lawfully executed. She was sentenced to death by hanging after she was convicted of murder in front of a grand jury. Shortly after, the second half of the 1600s saw the executions of many women who were accused of witchcraft during the witch hunt hysteria and Salem Witch Trials. While many people were executed, 80% of the accusations were towards women, so the list of executions disproportionately favors women.

Other notable female executions include Mary Surratt, Margie Velma Barfield and Wanda Jean Allen. Mary Surrat was executed by hanging in 1865 after being convicted of co-conspiring about Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Margie Velma Barfield was convicted of murder and when she was executed by lethal injection in 1984, she became the first woman to be executed since the ban on capital punishment was lifted in 1976. Wanda Jean Allen was convicted in 1989 of murder and had a high profile execution by lethal injection in January 2001. She was the first black woman to be executed in the US since 1954. According to Allen's lawyers, prosecutors capitalized on her low IQ, race and homosexuality in their representations of her as a murderer at trial.

Distribution of the Sexes

-scrap the sentence that's already in place: As of October 1, 2014, men accounted for 98% of people on death row and 99% of executions since 1976. (none of this info is current)

Replace with:

As of October 1, 2016, the Death Penalty Information Center reports that there are only 54 women on death row. This constitutes 1.86% of the total death row population. 16 women have been executed since 1976, while 1442 men have been executed. 15,391 total confirmed lawful executions have been carried out in the US since 1608, and of these, 575, or 3.6%, were women. Women account for 1/50 death sentences, 1/67 people on death row, and 1/100 people whose executions are actually carried out. The states that have executed the most women are California, Texas and Florida. For women, the racial breakdown of those sentenced to death is 21% black, 13% Latina, 2% American Indian, 61% white and 3% Asian.