Shreveport (LA) Times

April 13, 2004

Editorial

The U.S. Supreme Court in October will take up the issue of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for those who com­mit­ted crimes while juve­niles. But the Louisiana Legislature need not wait on the jus­tices to ban such exe­cu­tions.

Louisiana is in the minor­i­ty when it comes to the death penal­ty for those under the age of 18, and the num­bers are shrink­ing. Thirty-two states already ban the death penal­ty for juve­niles; 43 have nev­er used it for young offend­ers, regard­less of what state law says.

Several states are con­sid­er­ing leg­is­la­tion sim­i­lar to that now being delib­er­at­ed in Baton Rouge. House Bill 783 by Rep. Cheryl A. Gray, D‑New
Orleans, and Senate Bill 221 by Sen. Don Cravins, D‑Lafayette, would bar the death penal­ty for cap­i­tal crimes com­mit­ted by offend­ers younger than 18. Five peo­ple now sit on Louisiana’s death row for crimes com­mit­ted as juve­niles. The last such exe­cu­tion was 14 years ago.

The case that may lay the issue to rest for good is Roper v. Simmons, a Missouri case involv­ing the killing of a woman by a 17-year-old. When the Court last con­sid­ered the juve­nile death penal­ty in 2002, dis­sent­ing
Justices David Souter, John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer wrote, ​“The prac­tice of exe­cut­ing [juve­nile] offend­ers is a rel­ic of the past and is incon­sis­tent with evolv­ing stan­dards of decen­cy in a civ­i­lized soci­ety. We should put an end to this shame­ful prac­tice.“

Public opin­ion is sim­i­lar­ly inclined. An ABC News Poll at the end of 2003 showed that just one-fifth of Americans sup­port exe­cut­ing youth who com­mit cap­i­tal crimes. But the grounds for alter­ing Louisiana’s law are based on more than chang­ing pub­lic opin­ion.

In tes­ti­mo­ny before the Nevada State Assembly last year vot­ed to elim­i­nate the juve­nile death penal­ty, Dr. David Fassler of the Vermont Psychiatric Association tes­ti­fied to the phys­i­o­log­i­cal rea­sons ado­les­cents are ​“much more like­ly to act on impulse, with­out con­sid­er­ing the con­se­quences of their actions, and [why] they are gen­er­al­ly more recep­tive and respon­sive to inter­ven­tion and reha­bil­i­ta­tion.“

In a let­ter to a Florida news­pa­per, for­mer first lady Rosalynn Carter wrote
​“Acknowledging the less­er cul­pa­bil­i­ty of juve­nile offend­ers does not min­i­mize the suf­fer­ing and impact upon their vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. Tragically, there are juve­niles who com­mit ter­ri­ble crimes. But pun­ish­ment is to be imposed accord­ing to the cul­pa­bil­i­ty of the offend­er.” And sci­ence increas­ing­ly calls the cul­pa­bil­i­ty of juve­niles into question.

Sources

Shreveport (LA) Times