Name
The Difference Gender Makes: Understanding the Complexities of Women's Wrongful Conviction Cases
Description

Although women are the fastest growing segment of the carceral population, they represent less than ten percent of exonerees. Women's wrongful conviction claims are undertheorized, overlooked, under-resourced, and misunderstood, contributing to a "gender gap" in exonerations. In this session, we identify and analyze gender-specific patterns in wrongful conviction cases. Among women exonerees, nearly two-thirds were convicted in "no crime" cases. Women are also uniquely vulnerable to prosecutorial misuse and abuse of conspiracy and accomplice liability charges, and are at a substantial disadvantage when leveraging claims of self-defense. Women challenging conspiracy, accomplice liability, and homicide convictions face considerable barriers to exoneration-barriers that are a consequence of popular expectations of innocence as established by DNA evidence and eyewitness identification. We discuss the challenges of women's cases and offer recommendations for advocates and litigators.