As Tennessee execution nears, Christa Pike case highlights the few women on death row - WESH

It is incredibly rare for a woman to be sentenced to death in the U.S., but in Tennessee, a woman is due to be executed on Wednesday for the first time in the state in 200 years. Only 18 women have been executed in the country’s modern death penalty era, which began in 1977. The most recent execution was in Missouri in 2023, when Amber McLaughlin, a transgender woman, was executed via lethal injection for the murder of her ex-girlfriend in 2003. Why are there so few executions? Women account for only 1% of all executions in the modern death penalty era. Men account for the other 1,664 executions. The primary reason, experts say, is that women commit fewer violent crimes. Experts also say juries could be more hesitant to give a woman the death penalty.