Nieves Will Join a Small Group of Women on Death Row Across U.S.

With a jury’s verdict Wednesday, Sandi Nieves joins a small sorority of about 55 women nationwide who are facing execution.

But as with other convicted murderesses, Nieves’ chances of being put to death remain slim. Only five woman have been executed in the United States in the last 38 years.

“The system has just been very reluctant to order the death of a woman,” said Victor L. Streib, dean of the law school at Ohio Northern University, who has researched the topic for more than 20 years. “It’s part of our culture.”

The many people who tried to stop the 1998 execution of Karla Faye Tucker in Texas illustrate how society feels about executing women--even a woman, in Tucker’s case, who killed two people with a pickax during a burglary.

Although women commit about 13% of all homicides, they account for 1.9% of defendants sentenced to death and only 1.5% of the nation’s death row population of about 3,600, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Of the 38 states that permit the death penalty, only 18 have women on death row. California has the most, with Nieves scheduled to be the 12th woman on death row when she is sentenced by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge L. Jeffrey Wiatt.

That compares to about 550 men on death row in California.

Nationwide, women constitute about 0.5% of those actually executed. California has not executed a woman since the 1962 killing of Ventura County resident Elizabeth Ann “Ma” Duncan, who was convicted of plotting the murder of her daughter-in-law.

Of the 42 clemencies granted nationwide since 1976, seven of them were for women, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

More research is needed, however, before sweeping conclusions can be drawn about whether governors take more pity on women, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington-based death penalty center. Four of the seven women had been victims of domestic violence in Ohio, Dieter said, who were granted clemency after a change in laws there provided for such a defense.

A San Fernando Valley jury decided Nieves should receive the death penalty for murdering her four daughters. “This was a horrific crime and this was what the jury was reacting to,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a USC law professor.

But other legal experts say that death sentences have little to do with the viciousness of the crimes.

“It’s very connected to the politics of communities,” said Lance Lindsey, executive director of the San Francisco-based Death Penalty Focus. “It’s up to prosecutors to decide whether to pursue the death penalty.”

There is also a political dimension, experts said, with law and order a common campaign platform.

In Nieves’ case, Deputy Public Defender Howard Waco has accused prosecutors of seeking the death penalty so that Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti could appear tough on crime during an election year.

Deputy Dist. Attys. Kenneth Barshop and Beth Silverman denied the charge, saying that the Nieves slayings warrant capital punishment.

The number of California men and women condemned to death has grown dramatically over the last decade, corresponding with the increasingly pro-capital punishment stand among politicians.

In 1990, there were nearly 300 men and two women on death row in California. Now, there are about 560.

Odds are, however, that Nieves will never face an executioner.

According to a recent study, state and federal courts across the nation have overturned death sentences in more than two-thirds of all capital cases. And in the vast majority of cases retried, the defendants escaped death. On average, only one of every 20 death row prisoners was executed.

Since the Duncan case in 1962, only five women have been executed in the country. Though four of those--Tucker in 1998, Judy Buenoano of Florida in 1998, Betty Lou Beets of Texas in February and Christina Riggs of Arkansas in May--have been recent, experts believe the jump is due to coincidence, as well as the slow process of appellate litigation after the death penalty was reinstated in many states in 1976.