Policy Issues
Juveniles
Offenders under the age of 18 are exempt from the death penalty. Developments in brain science have renewed debate about whether young adults should also be excluded.
Policy Issues
Offenders under the age of 18 are exempt from the death penalty. Developments in brain science have renewed debate about whether young adults should also be excluded.
Children are not as culpable as adults for their actions. In the death penalty context, that principle has caused debate about what age is too young for someone to be subject to execution. International human rights law has long prohibited the use of the death penalty against people who were younger than age 18 at the time of the offense. See Executions of Juveniles Outside of the U.S. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court brought the U.S. into compliance with that international norm, ruling that the U.S. Constitution also protects people from being sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were under 18. For more information, see the Roper v. Simmons Resource Page.
The Court had earlier (1987) held that the proper cutoff should be the age of 16, but states gradually applied more stringent standards to avoid conflict with other areas of the law where children were treated differently. By 2005, thirty states had either abolished the death penalty for all offenders or at least for those under the age of 18. As with its earlier ruling exempting defendants with intellectual disabilities, the Court found that a national consensus had formed around excluding those under 18, and that there was little to be gained in terms of deterrence or retribution by executing younger offenders. Some Justices pointed to the fact that the U.S. was virtually alone in the world in allowing juvenile offenders to be executed. The emerging science of brain development also contributed to this decision.
Debate has continued on whether even the age of 18 is too young to assume full adult accountability for a heinous crime. Some have suggested that 21 would be a more appropriate age both because of the rights and responsibilities conferred by society at that age and because new brain science shows that critical areas of the brain relating to judgment, thrill seeking, and consequential thinking do not mature until the mid-twenties. The Court’s ruling on the application of the death penalty to juveniles has spurred other decisions regarding the use of life-without-parole sentences for this same group.
DPIC has carefully monitored the flow of state legislation and court decisions regarding the appropriate age for the death penalty. The pertinent Supreme Court decision is fully analyzed. DPIC also makes available the thorough research by others on the use of the death penalty for juveniles in U.S. history, with statistics on sentences, executions, and the race of defendants.
Jun 23, 2020
Three professional organizations and eight practitioners in the fields of neuroscience and neuropsychology have joined a Texas death-row prisoner in challenging the constitutionality of the state’s use of “future dangerousness” findings to impose …
Read MoreDec 08, 2020
As the December 10, 2020 execution date of federal death-row prisoner Brandon Bernard (pictured with his family) approached, jurors and a former prosecutor in his case came forward saying that the teen offender’s life should be sp…
Oct 29, 2020
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia continues to use the death penalty against people accused of crimes committed as juveniles, despite a royal decree claiming to ban that practice, human rights organizations and defense lawyers have cha…
Sep 18, 2020
The federal government intends to execute Christopher Vialva (pictured) on September 24, 2020, the first time in nearly 70 years it will have put any teenage offender to death. But according to a prominent cognitive neuropsycholog…
Jul 13, 2020
NEWS (7/9/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court upheld the conviction and death sentence of Troy Merck, Jr. Merck had argued that his l…
Apr 14, 2020
NEWS (4/14/20) — Saudi Arabia: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has carried out its 800th execution under the five-year reign of King Salman bin Abdulaziz, according to reports by the human rights groups European-Saudi Organisation for Human Ri…
Mar 26, 2020
NEWS (3/26/20): Kentucky — The Kentucky Supreme Court has issued decisions in two cases presenting significant issues concerning the applicability of the death penalty against defendants with intellectual disability or under the age of 21.…
Sep 26, 2019
The Kentucky Supreme Court has heard oral argument and will soon decide whether subjecting youthful offenders under age 21 to the death penalty violates the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. On Septe…
Jul 17, 2019
Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who described his deciding vote to uphold the constitutionality of capital punishment in 1976 as the one court vote he most regretted, has died. He was 99 years old. A
May 14, 2019
Facing a May 16, 2019 execution date, Alabama death-row prisoner Michael Brandon Samra (pictured) has asked the United States Supreme Court and Governor Kay Ivey to halt his execu…
Apr 25, 2019
In an action condemned by the United Nations and human rights groups as a flagrant violation of international law, Saudi Arabia beheaded 37 people, including juvenile offenders, in six separate locations on April 23, 2019. It was …