Decisions given in women’s trials in colonial Western Australia were complex and juries and judges were likely influenced by a number of different legal, social, and cultural factors. Although the use of defence counsel, the co-accused status of the defendant, and the prerogative of the jury and judge to recommend mercy or to exercise leniency influenced the outcome of the trial, these factors were often mediated by, and entangled with, social and cultural understandings of gender, class, and race: the cultural construct of gender often determining which women were “worthy” to gain advantage from these rules and institutions. Nonetheless, many women were aware of the contexts in which thecriminal justice systemwomen’s place in criminal justice system operated. They could, and did, use the system to their advantage by employing defence lawyers and presenting an appearance of “respectable femininitypresenting persona ofrespectable” femininity in court. The experience of Aboriginal women in thecriminal justice systemAboriginal women in criminal justice system, however, was different to that of non-Aboriginal women and was influenced by racialised attitudes and unequal laws. Aboriginal women were judged by non-Indigenous male juries and sentenced by non-Indigenous male judges, who did not understand the women’s customary obligations or recognise customary laws.