Women

On July 8, 2026, King Charles, fol­low­ing the advice of Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, grant­ed a posthu­mous con­di­tion­al par­don to Ruth Ellis, con­vert­ing her death sen­tence to a term of life impris­on­ment. Ms. Ellis was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death for the April 10, 1955 mur­der of her roman­tic part­ner David Blakely, and she was the last woman hanged in the United Kingdom on July 13, 1955. A press release from the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Justice explains that this…

On April 27, 2026, coun­sel for Oklahoma death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er Brenda Andrew, the only woman on the state’s death row, filed a peti­tion ask­ing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to recon­sid­er whether her con­sti­tu­tion­al right to a fair tri­al was vio­lat­ed by the prosecution’s use of​“ram­pant gen­der bias” dur­ing her tri­al. In January 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a per curi­am deci­sion, remand­ed the case for con­sid­er­a­tion of whether the state’s…

DPI’s​“What to Know” series exam­ines cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment from mul­ti­ple angles, one top­ic at a time. Each install­ment pro­vides essen­tial facts and data on spe­cif­ic aspects of the death penal­ty. Why it mat­ters: Although women rep­re­sent just 2% of death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers, they have unique issues and have often faced gen­der bias­es at every stage of their pros­e­cu­tion. — Fewer than 50 women are sen­tenced to death in the United States (October 2025). — Women…

Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, has filed a law­suit in the Davidson County Chancery Court chal­leng­ing the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col, assert­ing it vio­lates her con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and con­flicts with her reli­gious beliefs. The state’s new exe­cu­tion pro­to­col relies sole­ly on pen­to­bar­bi­tal to induce res­pi­ra­to­ry and car­diac arrest, rather than the for­mer three-drug cock­tail. Ms. Pike argues that Tennessee’s lim­i­ta­tion on clergy,…