Women represent less than two percent of the total death row population.
Women account for one out of every eight Americans arrested for murder and one out of 70 people presently on death row. She was the first woman to be put to death in the United States since the death penalty was was reinstated in 1976. She was the first woman to die in the state in 150 years. Erica Sheppard , the youngest woman on Texas death row, said she wanted to die. Sheppard, who murdered a woman for her car, would have been the first black woman to be executed since 1976.