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Killer May Become Florida's Only Woman Facing Death Sentance

POSTED: Friday, November 30, 2007

There are 386 inmates sentenced to death in Florida -- all of them men.

That could change after nine of 12 members of a Duval County jury on Thursday voted to recommend the death penalty for Tiffany Cole -- one of four people convicted of kidnapping, armed robbery and burying alive a St. Nicholas couple two years ago.

If Judge Michael Weatherby agrees, Cole, 25, will go from the Duval County jail to Florida's death row. She would be in her cell 24 hours a day, seven days a week -- allowed out only twice a week for showers.

Both the prosecution and defense agreed that gender was not a factor in Cole's trial.

"The reality is, I think law-abiding citizens understand that if you break the law, then there are consequences for your behavior," Assistant State Attorney Jay Plotkin said. "That doesn't matter if you're a woman or a man, and I think that's what happened in this case."

Cole's attorney told Channel 4's Dan Leveton the fact that there were 10 women on the jury, and only two men, didn't matter, and he didn't necessarily want it to.

"I don't think gender was an issue," defense attorney Quenlin Till said. "You don't want to play the gender card. Everybody now is expected to be treated equally. You won't hear me argue, 'Well, she's a female, so let's go a little easier on her.'"

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, of about 3,300 convicts currently on death rows around the country, only 49 of them are women. Since the center began tracking executions in 1976, of 1,100 people put to death in the United States, just 11 were women.

Two of those executions were in Florida: Judy Buenoano in 1998 for murdering her husband, and the highly-publicized case of Alieen Wuornos in 2002. The story of Wuornos, a prostitute who admitted she was a serial killer, was told in the 2003 movie titled "Monster."

Andrea Hicks Jackson, a woman sentenced to death for killing Jacksonville police Officer Gary Bevel in 1983, had her sentence commuted to life in prison after a series of appeals.

Tiffany Cole will not likely be sentenced until early next year.

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