Women

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,…

The Guardian’s recent four-part series exam­ines the expe­ri­ences of women in prison around the world, with a focus on those fac­ing the death penal­ty. The series illu­mi­nates a large­ly over­looked issue with­in glob­al crim­i­nal legal sys­tems: the fail­ure to rec­og­nize how gen­der-based vio­lence shapes women’s jour­neys to incar­cer­a­tion and death row. The glob­al incar­cer­a­tion of women has reached its high­est lev­els, with more than 733,000 women and girls held in prisons…