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27 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 64 (2012)
Chivalry is Not Dead: Murder, Gender, and the Death Penalty

handle is hein.journals/berkwolj27 and id is 68 raw text is: Chivalry Is Not Dead: Murder, Gender, and the Death Penalty* Steven F. Shatzt and Naomi R. Shatztt ABSTRACT Chivalry-that set of values and code of conduct for the medieval knightly class-has long influenced American law, from Supreme Court decisions to substantive criminal law doctrines and the administration of criminal justice. The chivalrous knight was enjoined to seek honor and defend it through violence and, in a society that enforced strict gender roles, to show gallantry toward ladies of the same class, except for the women of the knight's own household, over whom he exercised complete authority. This article explores, for the first time, whether these chivalric values might explain sentencing outcomes in capital cases. The data for the article comes from our original study of 1299 first degree murder cases in California, whose death penalty scheme accords prosecutors and juries virtually unlimited discretion in making the death-selection decision. We examined sentencing outcomes for three particular types of murder where a chivalry effect might be expected-gang murders, rape-murders, and domestic violence murders. In cases involving single victims, the results were striking. In gang murders, the death-sentence rate was less than one-tenth the overall death- sentence rate. By contrast, in rape-murder cases, the death-sentence rate was nine times the overall death-sentence rate. The death-sentence rate for single-victim domestic violence murders was roughly 25% lower than the overall death- sentence rate. We also examined, through this study and earlier California studies, more general data on gender disparities in death sentencing and found substantial gender-of-defendant and gender-of-victim disparities. Women guilty f Phillip and Muriel Barnett Professor, University of San Francisco School of Law. A.B., 1966, University of California, Berkeley, J.D., 1969, Harvard Law School. Professor Shatz gratefully acknowledges the invaluable assistance of former U.S.F. students Tiffany Danao, Natalie Davis, Jaime Herren, Mary Johnson, and Jessica Simmons, who did the initial reading and coding of the data for the empirical study discussed in the article. tt Clerk, Hon. Ralph D. Gants, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. B.A., 2004, Barnard College, J.D., 2008, Yale Law School. The authors thank the participants at the U.S.F. faculty scholarship workshop for their comments and suggestions, which helped shape our thinking at an early stage of this project, and Susan Freiwald, Maya Manian, Nina Rivkind, and Julia Simon-Kerr for their thoughtful and careful reading of previous drafts of this article. BERKELEY JOURNAL OF GENDER, LAW & JUSTICE 64

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