Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, for­mer Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev, med­ical experts, and 48 nations are among those who filed friend-of-the-court briefs on Monday (July 19) urg­ing the U.S. Supreme Court to end the juve­nile death penal­ty. The Court is sched­uled to hear argu­ments this fall in Roper v. Simmons, a case that will deter­mine the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of exe­cut­ing juve­nile offend­ers. The U.S. is one of only a hand­ful of nations around the world that con­tin­ues to per­mit the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers, and one of only five nations (Congo, China, Iran, Pakistan, and the U.S.) to car­ry out such exe­cu­tions dur­ing the past four years, accord­ing to the brief filed by Nobel Peace Prize win­ners, includ­ing Carter and Gorbachev. The Court also received briefs from the 25-nation European Union, Mexico, Canada, and oth­er nations that argued that exe­cu­tions of juve­nile offend­ers ​“vio­lates wide­ly accept­ed human rights norms and the min­i­mum stan­dards of human rights set forth by the United Nations.” Similar briefs were filed by for­mer U.S. diplo­mats, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. (Associated Press, July 19, 2004) View the Amicus Briefs. See DPIC’s Roper v. Simmons page.

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