Women on Death Row

Описание: Brittany Pilkington of Bellefontaine could face the death penalty if she's convicted of murdering her three young sons by suffocation, but ABC 22/FOX 45 wanted to find out how her case stacks up against other capital cases in Ohio that involve women. In Ohio, death sentences for female suspects are so rare that there currently is only one woman on the state's death row; 71-year-old Donna Marie Roberts. "She was a middle-aged, short lady who had been used to a very privileged lifestyle," said Attorney for the State LuWayne Annos during a 2013 hearing at the Supreme Court. She was describing Donna Roberts' motivation for hiring a hit man to kill her husband to cash in on the insurance money. "She never said to the court 'Don't sentence me to death'," Annos continued. Roberts was sentenced and imprisoned in 2003, and has remained on death row ever since, even though she tried to appeal the sentence twice. "Are you more responsible if you hire it done, or if you do it yourself might be the question there," said Jefferson Ingram, a criminal justice professor at the University of Dayton who studies the death penalty. Jefferson said he believes planning a murder makes cases more likely to be death penalty eligible. "A woman who would hire a hitman to take out her husband has clearly done that, she's planned it out ahead of time. But, in the cases of suffocation it's not an instant death, there was planning and ongoing planning while that's going forth so it's difficult to say which one is worse." In another Miami Valley capital case, China Arnold faced the death penalty after she was accused of microwaving her 4-week-old baby, Paris, to death in 2005. Arnold was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the crime, but also appealed the conviction while her family maintained her innocence. Arnold could be seen crying in the courtroom during a sentencing in 2011. Ingram thinks that show of emotion may have helped Arnold escape the death penalty, the same way he thinks it could hurt Brittany Pilkington, who after two appearances in court has shown little emotion. Prosecutors described her affect as "flat" during her interviews, and those close to her report she did not cry at the funerals for her first two sons, Niall and Gavin. "[She] doesn't have the demeanor of someone who has some remorse, then that may help get the death penalty, too," Ingram said. Donna Marie Roberts remains on Ohio's death row with no scheduled execution date. Pilkington's case will be heard again in Logan County in September. Originally posted August 26, 2015.