Five women, out of 366 inmates, are awaiting execution in Florida, which trails behind California and Texas in having the third highest number of women on death row. It was Florida's first execution of a woman since 1848, when a slave known as Celia was hanged in Jacksonville for helping two male slaves stab her owner, who was also her father, to death.
Women represent less than two percent of the total death row population.
They account for one out of every eight Americans arrested for murder and one out of 77 people presently on death row. Only three, however, have been women. Looking small and frail, she was strapped in and asked if she had a final statement. She leaned her head back once, opened her mouth widely, and grimaced as they tightened the leather straps. Smoke curled up from her right leg throughout the 38-second electrocution.