Post by ScotKaren on Jun 20, 2006 11:27:47 GMT -5
seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/111038_1deathpenalty05.shtml
Wednesday, March 5, 2003
The state has never executed a woman
Females seem to get a break if court sees them as 'traditional'
By M.L. LYKE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Washington residents are reluctant to have a woman executed. So far, no convicted female felons have been sentenced to die in the state.
That could change if Barbara Opel is found guilty of aggravated murder in her contract murder trial, which began last month in Everett. Prosecutors have pushed for the death penalty, and it will be up to Opel's jury to decide whether execution is in line for the 39-year-old mother accused of soliciting six teens, including her own daughter, to bludgeon a man to death.
P-I Special Report
Women Behind Bars
Opel has two points in her favor:
1. She lives in the Northwest, with one of the country's lower capital punishment rates.
2. She's a woman.
Juries have traditionally been less likely to sentence women to death.
Barbara Opel, right, is escorted into court at the Snohomish County Courthouse. Opel, accused of a murder-for-hire, could face the death penalty.
"It's because of juries' and judges' assumptions of what women are like," says Victor Streib, a law professor in Ohio who researches the topic. "In some of the older cases, judges from the bench would say, 'If you had committed this crime as a man, I would have sentenced you to death. But women are the source of all life -- so how can I take your life?' "
Streib points to research that indicates gay women don't get the same breaks as straight women. "Researchers found the rate at which a jury does not see a 'traditional woman' removes some of that special consideration you might get as a woman."
In some countries, Streib says, it is illegal to execute women. Russia is one of them.
Death sentences for women are still extremely rare in America. Only two women were executed in all of 2002; 69 men were. One of the women executed was Linda Lyon Block, an anti-government extremist in Alabama convicted of shooting a police officer. Police say Block bragged she had been trained by ex-Navy SEALS to "kill without conscience."
The second execution was "Damsel of Death" Aileen Wuornos in Florida. Wuornos, a prostitute serial killer, was sentenced to the electric chair after confessing to offing at least seven men.
States leading the way in executions of women are California and North Carolina (16 each), followed by Florida (15) and Texas (13).
In Washington state, out of 252 people convicted on aggravated-murder charges, eight are women. Of those eight cases, five were murder-for-hire. Their victims: three husbands, one ex-boyfriend, one 59-year-old mother. Prosecutors sought the death penalty for only one, Susan Kroll.
Kroll, from Asotin County, hired two young men from Idaho to shoot her husband in 1989. The killing was exceptionally grisly. Kroll's husband was stabbed in the chest and ribs, his jaw was broken with a crow bar and his throat was cut. The only mitigating factor was that Kroll had four children.
She was convicted of the crime, but the jury was hung on sending her to death row. She got life.
Opel's murder-for-hire trial involves the April 2001 killing of her employer, Jerry Heimann. Opel was live-in caretaker to Heimann's frail, elderly mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's. The alleged motive was Heimann's $40,000.
Witness reports indicate Opel solicited the teenagers to kill Heimann with baseball bats and knives, promising them money, cars, clothing and, for her own 13-year-old daughter Heather, a dirt bike. She allegedly told one teen not to worry about getting caught because she intended to pin the crime on Heather.
Witnesses said Opel's younger children were with her as she yelled encouragement to the teens, who were clubbing 64-year-old Heimann to death, despite his pleas for mercy. They said she had the young kids help clean up the mess afterward.
Heather Opel and four other teens have been convicted in the killing. Some have agreed to testify against Barbara Opel.
If a jury convicts Opel of aggravated first-degree murder and sentences her to death, she has one more femme fact in her favor.
Reversals and commutation rates for death sentences are significantly higher for females than for males. Only about 11 percent of women sentenced to death nationally are executed. For men, it is about 24 percent.
Wednesday, March 5, 2003
The state has never executed a woman
Females seem to get a break if court sees them as 'traditional'
By M.L. LYKE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Washington residents are reluctant to have a woman executed. So far, no convicted female felons have been sentenced to die in the state.
That could change if Barbara Opel is found guilty of aggravated murder in her contract murder trial, which began last month in Everett. Prosecutors have pushed for the death penalty, and it will be up to Opel's jury to decide whether execution is in line for the 39-year-old mother accused of soliciting six teens, including her own daughter, to bludgeon a man to death.
P-I Special Report
Women Behind Bars
Opel has two points in her favor:
1. She lives in the Northwest, with one of the country's lower capital punishment rates.
2. She's a woman.
Juries have traditionally been less likely to sentence women to death.
Barbara Opel, right, is escorted into court at the Snohomish County Courthouse. Opel, accused of a murder-for-hire, could face the death penalty.
"It's because of juries' and judges' assumptions of what women are like," says Victor Streib, a law professor in Ohio who researches the topic. "In some of the older cases, judges from the bench would say, 'If you had committed this crime as a man, I would have sentenced you to death. But women are the source of all life -- so how can I take your life?' "
Streib points to research that indicates gay women don't get the same breaks as straight women. "Researchers found the rate at which a jury does not see a 'traditional woman' removes some of that special consideration you might get as a woman."
In some countries, Streib says, it is illegal to execute women. Russia is one of them.
Death sentences for women are still extremely rare in America. Only two women were executed in all of 2002; 69 men were. One of the women executed was Linda Lyon Block, an anti-government extremist in Alabama convicted of shooting a police officer. Police say Block bragged she had been trained by ex-Navy SEALS to "kill without conscience."
The second execution was "Damsel of Death" Aileen Wuornos in Florida. Wuornos, a prostitute serial killer, was sentenced to the electric chair after confessing to offing at least seven men.
States leading the way in executions of women are California and North Carolina (16 each), followed by Florida (15) and Texas (13).
In Washington state, out of 252 people convicted on aggravated-murder charges, eight are women. Of those eight cases, five were murder-for-hire. Their victims: three husbands, one ex-boyfriend, one 59-year-old mother. Prosecutors sought the death penalty for only one, Susan Kroll.
Kroll, from Asotin County, hired two young men from Idaho to shoot her husband in 1989. The killing was exceptionally grisly. Kroll's husband was stabbed in the chest and ribs, his jaw was broken with a crow bar and his throat was cut. The only mitigating factor was that Kroll had four children.
She was convicted of the crime, but the jury was hung on sending her to death row. She got life.
Opel's murder-for-hire trial involves the April 2001 killing of her employer, Jerry Heimann. Opel was live-in caretaker to Heimann's frail, elderly mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's. The alleged motive was Heimann's $40,000.
Witness reports indicate Opel solicited the teenagers to kill Heimann with baseball bats and knives, promising them money, cars, clothing and, for her own 13-year-old daughter Heather, a dirt bike. She allegedly told one teen not to worry about getting caught because she intended to pin the crime on Heather.
Witnesses said Opel's younger children were with her as she yelled encouragement to the teens, who were clubbing 64-year-old Heimann to death, despite his pleas for mercy. They said she had the young kids help clean up the mess afterward.
Heather Opel and four other teens have been convicted in the killing. Some have agreed to testify against Barbara Opel.
If a jury convicts Opel of aggravated first-degree murder and sentences her to death, she has one more femme fact in her favor.
Reversals and commutation rates for death sentences are significantly higher for females than for males. Only about 11 percent of women sentenced to death nationally are executed. For men, it is about 24 percent.