Psychologist Raises Concerns About Upcoming Federal Execution for Crimes Committed as a Teenager

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 neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist, the deci­sion to exe­cute Vialva is out of step with what sci­ence now knows about the work­ings of the adolescent brain. 

Vialva was 19 years old when he and four co-defen­dants, aged 15, 16, 16, and 18, killed a Texas cou­ple dur­ing a car­jack­ing and rob­bery. In a September 17 com­men­tary in Bloomberg Law, Dr. Jason Chein, the direc­tor of the Temple University Brain Research and Imaging Center, writes that while this was clear­ly an abhor­rent act, ​“to make a final judg­ment about a person’s life based on a crime he com­mit­ted as a teenag­er is to ignore what the last 20-plus years of research has taught us about the devel­op­ing brains of teenagers and adolescents.” 

Tried in Texas fed­er­al dis­trict court in 2020, Vialva and his 18-year-old co-defen­dant Brandon Bernard were sen­tenced to death. Since then, ​“researchers have devel­oped new brain imag­ing tech­nolo­gies that give us insight into the phys­i­o­log­i­cal under­pin­nings for the emo­tion­al reac­tiv­i­ty and poor deci­sion-mak­ing that char­ac­ter­izes teenagers,” Chein says. ​“This sci­ence sug­gests that no per­son of this age should be eli­gi­ble for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment — regard­less of their per­son­al his­to­ry, intel­lec­tu­al capac­i­ty, even­tu­al matu­ri­ty, or the vile­ness of their crime.”

Chein says the typ­i­cal teen’s “[d]eficits in the con­trol of emo­tions and behav­ior” are mag­ni­fied dur­ing times of stress and are ​“fur­ther height­ened in teenagers who have suf­fered from some form of abuse.” This, he says makes the death penal­ty par­tic­u­lar­ly inap­pro­pri­ate for teen offend­ers like Vialva. Vialva’s moth­er was white, and his father was Black. He was raised by his moth­er in an abu­sive home and repeat­ed­ly den­i­grat­ed by an overt­ly racist grand­fa­ther and step­fa­ther. Chein notes that Vialva ​“also shows signs of organ­ic brain dam­age from a neona­tal infec­tion” and had been ​“kicked out of his child­hood home only three days” before the murder.

On August 10, Vialva filed a 100-page habeas cor­pus peti­tion in fed­er­al dis­trict court that includ­ed chal­lenges to his death sen­tence based upon his men­tal age and the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of exe­cut­ing teen offend­ers. The dis­trict court denied the peti­tion on September 9. Late on September 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit sum­mar­i­ly affirmed the dis­trict court’s deci­sion and denied Vialva’s request for a stay of exe­cu­tion. Vialva is expect­ed seek a stay of exe­cu­tion from the U.S. Supreme Court to to review the court’s decision.

Vialva could be the first African American exe­cut­ed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment since its resump­tion of exe­cu­tions after a sev­en­teen-year hia­tus. Thirty-four of the 57 peo­ple cur­rent­ly on fed­er­al death row are peo­ple of col­or, includ­ing 26 Black men. 

In addi­tion to the age-relat­ed chal­lenges to his exe­cu­tion, Vialva has argued that his tri­al was marred by inef­fec­tive and con­flict­ed coun­sel who failed to inves­ti­gate the exten­sive evi­dence of his trau­mat­ic child­hood and cog­ni­tive impair­ments. At the time of tri­al, Vialva’s lawyer was active­ly seek­ing employ­ment with the U.S. Attorney’s Office that was pros­e­cut­ing the case. Vialva lat­er dis­cov­ered that his tri­al judge presided over his tri­al and post-con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings while bat­tling uncon­trolled alco­holism and was report­ed­ly intox­i­cat­ed while con­duct­ing his judi­cial duties. The judge even­tu­al­ly resigned under pres­sure after the Judicial Council of the Fifth Circuit imposed ​“severe sanc­tions” and ordered him to desist from continuing misconduct.

The dis­trict court wrote that Vialva’s argu­ment that his tri­al coun­sel had a con­flict of inter­est was ​“a sig­nif­i­cant claim.” However, the court said, ​“Mr. Vialva has already raised that claim in pri­or [habeas] pro­ceed­ings … and was unsuccessful.” 

If Vialva’s exe­cu­tion takes place as sched­uled, it would be the sixth fed­er­al exe­cu­tion con­duct­ed since July, dou­ble the num­ber in the pre­vi­ous half-cen­tu­ry and more than in any year since World War II. The last per­son under age 20 exe­cut­ed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment was William Tyler, who was exe­cut­ed in Washington, D.C in 1952 for a vio­la­tion of District of Columbia law. He was 18 at the time of his offense.

A recent DPIC analy­sis found that one-quar­ter of those on fed­er­al death row were sen­tenced to death for crimes com­mit­ted when they were age 21 or younger. 42% were age 25 and younger. DPIC also found that 63% of fed­er­al death-row pris­on­ers suf­fered from two or more of seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty or brain dam­age, and chron­ic childhood abuse.