Male jurors—and of course, all jurors were male—didn’t want to believe women were capable of murder. It threatened their sense of safety and world order, where only they were capable of passion, violence, and retribution. A wife and a mistress teaming up against their man struck inordinate fear in men who were as comfortably settled with their ideas about women’s roles as wives and mothers as they were with their pipes and newspapers after a day of toil.
