ABC19980113.1830.1141 NEWS CAPTION it must be fairly obvious what we'd like to know. has karla faye tucker got a better chance at avoiding execution because she is a woman. a couple more numbers. woman account for one of every eight people arrested for murder. but one out of fifty sentenced to death. one out of every seventy people on death row is a woman. at least since 1976, only one out of 432 people who have died, as we said was a woman. joining us to answer a couple of questions from texas tonight is bill lane. he is a defense attorney and in the last 17 years i gather you have defended 13 death penalty cases? that's correct. does a woman have an edge? no question that she does, peter. and in our state, at least, what we see is prosecutors time and time again, they ferret out and weed out cases in which women are involved and they don't pursue them. my apologies for interrupting. why do they do that? the old texas tradition of defending mom and apple pie? that's it. in a nut s hell, in texas we hold things very dear to us. and bun of those is our women. historically prosecutors are not successful in the prosecution of cases in which they are seeking the death penalty when a woman is accused. a woman who is in prison tonight who has had a conversion and if it's a man, how he he supposed to feel seeing the way karla faye tucker is getting attention? it is not fair, no question. i've got several of my own clients on death row that have made conversions. they will not have their stories told. we have a woman who has made a conversion and we've got the religious right that es supporting her commutation to a life sentence. a unique situation to texas and this country. i can't wait to see what governor bush is going to do with it. given the fact that you're a texan, what do you think governor bush will do? my guess is he has no choice other than to stand aside, let this execution proceed. that's the only choice i see that he has. thank you very much indeed. mr. lane. karla faye tuck ser due to be ux cuted on the 3rd of february.