Golden Gate University Law Review Volume 20 Issue 3 Women's Law Forum

Article 3

January 1990

Some Questions About Gender and the Death Penalty Elizabeth Rapaport

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Rapaport: Gender and the Death Penalty

SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT GENDER AND THE DEATH PENALTY Elizabeth Rapaport* [TJhat Mrs. Spinelli's execution would be repulsive to the people of California; that no woman in her right mind could commit the crime charged to her; that the execution of a woman would hurt California in the eyes of the world; that both the law and the will of the people were against the execution; that Mrs. Spinelli, as the mother of three children, should have special consideration; that California's proud record of never having executed a woman should not be spoiled. l - Petition addressed to the Governor of California, as recalled by Clinton Duffy, Warden of San Quentin, to whom it was delivered in 1941, the year in which Eithel Spinelli was executed. Signed by thirty inmates, who also offered to draw straws to go to the gas chamber in Spinelli's stead if her sentence was not commuted. What is pertinent for distinguishing the sexes is the relationship to death. - Jean-Francois Lyotard 2 1990 Elizabeth Rapaport. • Associate Professor of Public Policy, Duke University; J.D., 1987, Harvard Law School; Ph.D. Philosophy, 1971, Case Western Reserve University; B.A., 1965, City College of New York. I would like to thank David Baldus and Philip Cook for their helpful comments, and Lissa Astilla, Eric Christopherson, Watt Espy, Alex Keyssar, Johannah Scherrer and Martha Wall for several kinds of much appreciated assistance in preparing this article for publication. 1. C. DUFFY, 88 MEN AND 2 WOMEN 135-36 (1962). 2. Lyotard, One of the Things at Stake in Women's Struggles, 20 SUB-STANCE 10 (1978). .