About 47 women are on death row in the United States as of October 2025, and since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, only 18 have actually been executed.{1Death Penalty Information Center. Women}{2Death Penalty Information Center. Executions of Women} Women make up roughly 2% of the national death-sentenced population, and the gap between how many are sentenced and how many are put to death reflects how differently the system handles these cases at nearly every stage.
How Many Women, and Where
The population shifts slowly. The 47 figure is down slightly from around 50 at the start of 2023, and new death sentences for women are rare.{1Death Penalty Information Center. Women} Most movement off death row comes from appeals, commutations, or natural deaths rather than executions. More than half of all death row prisoners in the United States have been there longer than 18 years, and the women are no exception.{3Death Penalty Information Center. Time on Death Row}
California holds the largest share with 20 death-sentenced women. Texas, Florida, and Ohio each hold smaller but significant numbers.{1Death Penalty Information Center. Women} Most other states with active death penalty statutes have either zero or one woman under a capital sentence at any given time. A majority of the women are white, with Black and Latina women making up most of the rest. The totals are small enough that a single new case can shift the percentages visibly.
What the Convictions Look Like
Female capital cases follow a different pattern from male ones. More than half of the women currently on death row were convicted of killing someone within their own household, usually a spouse, intimate partner, child, or other family member. Cases involving a child’s death or a particularly vulnerable victim tend to draw the most aggressive prosecution.
To make a murder death-eligible, prosecutors have to prove at least one aggravating factor defined by state law. In cases against women, a handful recur:
- Financial motive, such as life insurance payouts or inheritance.
- Multiple victims, whether in a single event or over time.
- Murder committed during another felony like robbery, kidnapping, or arson.
- Evidence of torture, prolonged suffering, or a calculated plan to kill.
Co-defendant cases are a smaller slice. When a woman is sentenced to death alongside others, prosecutors generally have to show she led the plan or carried out the killing herself. The more common profile is a lone defendant and a planned attack in a domestic setting, with forensic evidence and testimony about motive doing most of the work at trial.
Abuse and Mental Illness in Their Histories
A 2023 study of women sentenced to death found that at least 96% had experienced gender-based violence, including sexual assault, physical abuse, or prolonged psychological torment. Most had endured multiple instances across their lifetimes, often starting in childhood and continuing into adult relationships.
These histories are supposed to carry weight at sentencing. In a capital trial, defense attorneys present mitigating evidence covering the defendant’s background, and a documented history of domestic abuse, childhood sexual assault, or severe mental illness can push a jury toward life instead of death. In practice, that evidence frequently gets discounted. Stereotypes about women’s credibility as abuse survivors, and resistance to connecting prolonged violence with later criminal behavior, mean trauma histories often fail to shift the sentence.
Untreated mental illness compounds the pattern. Research on this population has found that a majority of death-sentenced women had mental health conditions that went unaddressed before and during their offenses, raising questions about how culpability is evaluated in these cases.
How They Are Housed
Because so few women receive death sentences, most states do not run a dedicated female death row. Condemned women are typically held inside existing women’s prisons, either in specialized high-security units or, increasingly, within the general population under heightened supervision.
California made one of the sharpest shifts. The state phased out its segregated death row at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, and all 20 death-sentenced women there now live in general population housing across the prison. Texas still holds its condemned women at the Mountain View facility in Gatesville, where death row remains a designated custody level within the broader women’s unit. Florida’s Lowell Correctional Institution continues a segregated protocol.
Where segregation remains, daily life is defined by isolation. Women typically spend 22 to 23 hours a day in their cells. Recreation happens in small, supervised areas, often alone or with one or two others. Meals come through a slot in the door, and any movement outside the cell requires handcuffs and multiple-guard escort. In general population settings, women have more access to programming, prison jobs, communal dining, and routine contact with other inmates. The shift reflects a broader recognition that decades of extreme isolation cause measurable psychological harm, especially in a group that already carries heavy mental health burdens.
What a Death Sentence Does to Parental Rights
Many death-sentenced women are mothers, and a capital conviction starts a clock on their parental rights. Under the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act, child welfare agencies must begin termination proceedings once a child has spent 15 of the most recent 22 months in foster care.{4Child Welfare Information Gateway. Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 – P.L. 105-89} A death sentence effectively guarantees a mother will exceed that timeline, since she cannot complete the reunification plans that typically require drug treatment, counseling, and supervised visits.
The result is that many women permanently lose their parental rights in a separate civil proceeding while their criminal appeals are still pending. Even if the death sentence is later overturned, the termination of parental rights is usually final. Some states carve out exceptions when a child is placed with a relative, but the civil process moves forward regardless of what happens on appeal.
Protections During Pregnancy
Federal law prohibits executing a pregnant woman. Under 18 U.S.C. ยง 3596, the sentence cannot be carried out while the woman is pregnant, and the stay is mandatory, not discretionary.{5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3596 – Implementation of a Sentence of Death} At least 25 states have their own statutes mirroring this protection, with the details varying on how the pregnancy’s end is defined and when the execution timeline can resume. In every case, a suspected pregnancy must be communicated to the court, and the execution cannot proceed until the pregnancy is resolved.
How Women Leave Death Row
Most women leave death row without being executed. The far more common exits are successful appeals that lead to resentencing, commutations by a governor or pardons board, and occasionally exoneration. Women have historically received commutations at higher rates than men, though the raw numbers are small enough that broad generalizations are difficult.
Clemency works differently depending on the jurisdiction. In state cases, the governor or a pardons board can commute a death sentence to life without parole, usually after a detailed review of the trial, the inmate’s prison conduct, and any new evidence. In federal cases, the President holds the pardon and reprieve power under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution.{6Library of Congress. Scope of Pardon Power}
Appeals account for more exits than executive clemency does. Procedural errors at trial, ineffective assistance of counsel, and newly discovered evidence can all lead to reversals and resentencing to life. Since 1973, more than 200 death row prisoners nationwide have been fully exonerated, though women represent a small fraction of that group.{7Death Penalty Information Center. Innocence}
Executions of Women Since 1976
The 18 executions of women since 1976 represent barely 1% of all executions carried out in the United States during that period.{2Death Penalty Information Center. Executions of Women} The rarity means each one tends to draw substantial public and media attention.
The most recent federal execution of a woman was Lisa Montgomery in January 2021, the first woman put to death by the federal government since 1953. Her case drew intense scrutiny because of her extensively documented history of severe childhood abuse and mental illness, reigniting debate over how the legal system accounts for trauma in capital sentencing. Lethal injection remains the primary method of execution nationally, and no woman has been executed by any other method in the modern era.{8Death Penalty Information Center. Methods of Execution}