Virginia put to death a 41-year-old woman Thursday night, the first execution of a female in the country in five years and the first in that state for nearly a century.

The lethal-injection death of Teresa Lewis, convicted of the 2002 contract killing of her husband and stepson, broke with a tradition of societal “queasiness” about executing women, one legal expert said. It could also psychologically clear the way to carrying out death sentences on others among the 60 condemned women in the nation — including 18 in California, according to some capital punishment observers.

Lewis’ death sentence was only the 12th carried out against a woman prisoner in the 34 years since capital punishment was restored as a sentencing option. In that same period, 1,214 men have been put to death.

Legal scholars attribute the “gender bias” in executions to women’s lower propensity to kill and the tendency of those who do to kill a husband, lover or child in the heat of emotion, seldom with the “aggravating factors” states require for a death sentence. Lewis pleaded guilty to having arranged the killings to collect $250,000 in insurance money on her stepson.

“The way capital punishment statutes are written inadvertently favor women. They make it a worse crime if a homicide is committed during a felony, like robbery or rape, which are rarely involved in women’s homicides,” said Victor Streib, a Northern Ohio University law professor who has spent 30 years researching condemned women. “It’s also easier to convince a jury that women suffer emotional distress or other emotional problems more than men.”

Full Story: Executions of women are rare because they kill less often, researchers say – latimes.com.

WATCH: US WOMAN EXECUTED FOR FAMILY MURDERS