The death penalty has long been under fire for racial and social disparities. In Florida, Judias Buenoano is scheduled to die in the electric chair at Florida State Prison on March 30. Buenoano's death would be the 1st execution of a woman in Florida in 150 years. The last was a slave, known only as Celia, condemned for killing her master and hanged in Jacksonville on Sept. 22, 1848. Death penalty supporters say the law is gender-blind.
Statistics show otherwise.
If you take a female child who is tending toward criminal behavior, she's just as capable of pulling the trigger or using the pickax as a man. It's part of her culture. Tanner's office has the unusual distinction of having convicted half of the women sent to Florida's death row. But female, cold-blooded killers in some instances also deserve the death penalty. Tanner and others concede that a curious type of sexism still exists in murder trials.