Date Published: June 25, 2006   

Death penalty cases pending against women in South Carolina

By MEG KINNARD
Associated Press Writer

Jennifer Annette Holloway probably did not expect to spend her birthday fighting for her life.

The Tennessee woman, who turned 29 on Sunday, faces the death penalty for the kidnapping and murder of a South Carolina businessman. She was convicted Friday.

According to prosecutors, Holloway and her common-law husband, David Wendell Edens, lured the 71-year-old victim from his Upstate home on Sept. 14, 2004, on the premise they wanted to buy a vehicle he was selling.

The body of Sara Lee executive Jim Cockman was found nine days later in a freezer in a Sevierville, Tenn., storage unit rented by the couple. His head was wrapped with tape.

Prosecutor Bob Ariail told jurors last week that the evidence would leave no doubt on their minds of the couple's collective guilt.

"Jim Cockman looked like a human silver Q-tip, and he suffocated," Ariail said. "They knew when they wrapped his head with duct tape that he was going to suffocate."

It's been nearly 60 years since South Carolina executed a woman, but prosecutors are now seeking the ultimate punishment against Holloway. In another case, a judge will decide whether 73-year-old Rita Bixby will be eligible for the death penalty, even though she wasn't at home when two law enforcement officers were shot there in 2003.

There are no women currently on South Carolina's death row.

Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, only one woman has been condemned to die by the state. Rebecca Smith was convicted of killing her husband, and her sentence was reversed by the state Supreme Court in 1992. A second jury sentenced her to life in prison.

North Carolina has executed one woman since 1976; Velma Barfield died by lethal injection in 1984 for killing her boyfriend. Sixteen women have been sentenced to die in North Carolina since 1973, and four women are on North Carolina's death row.

Among the states, California has the most women on death row with 14 followed by Texas with 10.

Nationally, women account for about 10 percent of murder arrests but for only about 2.1 percent of people sentenced to die and 1.4 percent of people currently on death row, according to a study by Ohio Northern University law professor Victor L. Streib.

Death penalty cases frequently receive heightened media attention, and that's especially true when the person to be executed is a woman, according to Dianne Clements, spokeswoman for Houston-based Justice For All, which assists the families of victims in death penalty cases.

The executions of men "in no way compare" to the attention surrounding women's executions, Clements said. Since 1976, three women have been executed in Texas, home to more than a third of the nation's 1,000-plus executions carried out since reinstatement.

Clements was involved in the 1998 execution of Karla Faye Tucker, who was convicted of two murders. The media attention was unprecedented, said Clements, who estimated that more than 50 satellite TV trucks were staked out near the Texas death house.

"It was an unbelievable episode. You would never anticipate or expect that," Clements said.

One capital punishment opponent says many prosecutors and jurors don't want to consider executing a woman, regardless of the crime.

"It's unbecoming to kill a woman," said Abe Bonowitz, director of Citizens Against the Death Penalty. "And I think people are going to see it in different ways, depending on how you approach the whole gender thing."

The prosecutor in the Bixby case said he doesn't act differently when trying female or male defendants.

"From my perspective, gender makes absolutely no difference in the situation of the crime," said Jerry Peace, solicitor for Abbeville County. "You look at the crime, you look at the circumstances, you look at the defendant's record ... and their impact on society, and you say, 'Should this case be a death penalty case?'"

Peace said jurors theoretically should have the same mind-set, although there is no guarantee. "You would hope that that (gender) is not a consideration," he said. "You would hope ... they would look the circumstances of the crime, and those would be the considerations."

Many prosecutors make their decision to seek the death penalty based on whether they can win the case, Streib said.

"Almost all prosecutors think about their odds of winning the death penalty case," he said. "And if the defendant is a woman, then the odds are much less."

Streib said defense lawyers go to great lengths to make sure jurors will be sympathetic to their female clients.

"Attorneys generally will try to package the female client in the image of being very feminine, in the old-fashioned, traditional way, as a mother or a grandmother," Streib said. "And the prosecutor has to dehumanize the defendant before they will sentence them to death."

Columbia attorney Dick Harpootlian has been on both sides of death penalty cases.

"Death penalty cases are legal minefields," said Harpootlian, a former prosecutor. "And if you cover that with a patina of a very sympathetic defendant, it becomes even more difficult."