Few Women Face Execution — But Will Casey Anthony?

Prosecutors say Casey Anthony killed her child, but will they push to send her to death row? First-degree murder is punishable by death, but the history of female killers executed in Florida during the past 150 years is brief.

The state has executed only two women in the modern era. The third, a slave who killed her master, was hanged in the mid-19th century. Of the nearly 390 people on Florida’s death row, only one is a woman.

Only 1.5 percent of death-row inmates nationally are women, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. But most of those 51 women killed someone they know: a husband, boyfriend or their own child, he said.

The decision to seek the death penalty often is tied to politics and community outrage rather than the heinousness of the homicide, Dieter said.  Even so, though the Anthony case is the kind of crime that shocks the public, “many women have killed their children and don’t get the death penalty,” he said.

Randy Means, spokesman for State Attorney Lawson Lamar, said Wednesday that he could not discuss prosecutors’ plans for Anthony. But he did say they will make a decision in the next few weeks.

Florida law lists a number of “aggravating circumstances” that can be cited to justify execution, such as whether the homicide was committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner.

They’ll look at the mitigating circumstances — also outlined in state law — such as whether the defendant acted under extreme duress. In the end, it comes down to whether the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating.

“It’s like doing math without numbers,” explained Bob Dekle, a retired prosecutor who teaches legal skills at the University of Florida.

Amy L. Edwards and Susan Jacobson | Sentinel Staff Writers  October 16, 2008

Filed under: Casey Anthony, caylee anthony