In a forth­com­ing arti­cle, Columbia University researchers found that, since 1994, when death sen­tences for juve­nile offend­ers peaked, these sen­tences have declined sig­nif­i­cant­ly. In par­tic­u­lar, the decline in juve­nile death sen­tences since 1999 is sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant after con­trol­ling for the mur­der rate, the juve­nile homi­cide arrest rate, and the rate of adult death sen­tences. This down­ward trend in juve­nile death sen­tences is indica­tive of an evolv­ing stan­dard in state tri­al courts oppos­ing the impo­si­tion of death sen­tences on minors who com­mit cap­i­tal offens­es.

This evi­dence is rel­e­vant for the upcom­ing Supreme Court case of Roper v. Simmons that will decide whether a nation­al con­sen­sus has evolved against such death sen­tences. One mea­sure of this con­sen­sus would be a less­en­ing in the num­ber of juve­niles sen­tenced to death.

The Decline of the Juvenile Death Penalty: Scientific Evidence of Evolving Norms, by Jeffrey Fagan and Valerie West of Columbia University, will be pre­sent­ed at the Symposium on Actual Innocence at Northwestern University in October and has been accept­ed for pub­li­ca­tion in the peer reviewed pub­li­ca­tion, The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. (Press Release, Columbia Law School, Oct. 5, 2004) (Link to Press Release and Article). See ​“From DPIC” on DPIC’s home page, and DPIC’s Roper v. Simmons page.

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