As it launched a global campaign to end the execution of juvenile offenders, Amnesty International released a new report entitled “Stop Child Executions! Ending the death penalty for child offenders.” The report condemns the execution of those who commit crimes before reaching the age of 18, a punishment the organization calls a “heinous practice due to a greater awareness that children constitute a ‘protected’ class.” In the report, Amnesty notes that only eight countries (the United States, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen) have executed juvenile offenders since 1990. The U.S.’s 19 executions of juvenile offenders since 1990 account for more than half of the 34 juvenile offender executions that have occurred throughout the world during that same time.

In a related report, “Dead Wrong: The Case of Nanon Williams, Child Offender Facing Execution on Flawed Evidence,” Amnesty focuses on the case of Nanon Williams, a juvenile offender on death row in Texas. The report highlights doubts about Williams’s guilt, noting that his case illustrates many of the systemic problems of capital cases, such as inadequate counsel and the state’s use of unreliable evidence. (Amnesty International, January 21, 2004) Read Amnesty International’s Press Release. Read Stop Child Executions! Ending the death penalty for child offenders. Read Dead Wrong: The Case of Nanon Williams, Child Offender Facing Execution on Flawed Evidence. See Juvenile Death Penalty.