Execution of women still rare nationwide By Ted Gregory Tribune Staff Writer Clearly the planned conclusion of Guinevere Garcia's miserable life, at the end of an intravenous tube operated by a State of Illinois executioner behind a one-way mirror, is an anomaly of the justice system. Scheduled for execution just after midnight Tuesday inside Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet, she would be the first woman in the nation put to death in more than a decade and the first in Illinois in 57 years. In fact, throughout Illinois' 177-year history, only two of the state's 379 executions were of women. And of the 313 executions carried out nationwide since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1973, one has been a woman. Experts note that part of the reason behind the lower number of women executed than men is that women are less likely to commit the kinds of crimes that receive the death penalty; that juries and judges tend to believe women-more often than men-who say they were coerced or under extreme emotional distress when they committed the crime. Also, women historically are less likely to repeat severe crimes and less likely to commit murder with another felony-a combination that often leads to a death sentence. ................... In addition, women Death Row inmates represent about 1.5 percent of all prisoners in condemned units across the U.S. But the last sentence to be carried out was in 1984 in North Carolina, when 52-year-old Margie Velma Barfield, convicted of poisoning her fiance, was given a lethal injection. ................... Some statistics lend credence to Byrne's observations. For example, less than 2 percent of men are on Death Row for killing their spouses, former spouses or lovers. About 20 percent of women are there for that offense. Copyright Chicago Tribune ------------------------ COPYRIGHT - CHICAGO TRIBUNE This excerpt was obtained from the Chicago Tribune's archives in the Newstand section of AMERICA ONLINE (aol.com). For more information about the Tribune's aol.com services, contact: TribLetter@aol.com Additional information about Chicago Tribune electronic resources can be found on page 4 of the daily Tribune.