Pensacola (FL) News Journal

July 26, 2004

Editorial

The impulse to kill is as old as the first orga­nized soci­eties. Examples of exe­cu­tions sanc­tioned by ancient com­mu­ni­ties can be found in Scriptures and oral tra­di­tions from every cor­ner of the globe.

An equal­ly long-stand­ing tra­di­tion, stretch­ing from the begin­ning of civ­i­liza­tion to our own day, is the recog­ni­tion of the moral dif­fer­ences and expec­ta­tions of juve­niles and adults. If it were not for the ero­sion in our under­stand­ing of these time-hon­ored dif­fer­ences, it would hard­ly be worth men­tion­ing.

Unfortunately, the lines between ​“juve­nile” and ​“adult” have become blurred, espe­cial­ly in the realm of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.

The U.S. Supreme Court was right to stop cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for men­tal­ly retard­ed offend­ers but wrong to shy away from the next log­i­cal step: keep­ing kids off death row. The exe­cu­tion of offend­ers who were minors at the time of their crime height­ens the bar­bar­i­ty of the American death penal­ty.

As a civ­i­lized soci­ety, the United States should abol­ish the death penal­ty for offend­ers who com­mit­ted their crimes as juve­niles.

That’s what oppo­nents of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for juve­niles, includ­ing the American Bar Association, a list of Nobel Prize win­ners, for­mer U.S. diplo­mats and 48 coun­tries, told the U.S. Supreme Court last week in court briefs.

Ordinarily, deci­sions on the death penal­ty should be left to the states. But exe­cut­ing peo­ple for crimes com­mit­ted while they are ado­les­cents should fit the Constitution’s def­i­n­i­tion of ​“cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment,” which is pro­hib­it­ed by the Eighth Amendment.

Many Americans will be shocked to know that Iran, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and the United States are the only nations in the world that per­mit the exe­cu­tion of juve­niles. This isn’t the kind of com­pa­ny a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety should desire to be includ­ed in.

So far, the Supreme Court has adopt­ed that view only for chil­dren who are 15 years old and younger. It should pro­tect all minors from cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. After all, sci­ence has con­firmed what par­ents have long known: The brains of 16- and 17-year-olds are still not ful­ly formed — an imma­tu­ri­ty that ham­pers deci­sion-mak­ing.

Two years ago, the nation’s high­est court barred states from exe­cut­ing adults with the minds of chil­dren on the ground that doing so was cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. But so far the court has declined to stop states from exe­cut­ing actu­al chil­dren.

We urge the Supreme Court to get behind the move­ment to put a halt to the exe­cu­tion of juve­niles. Anything less is cru­el and unusual punishment.

Sources

Pensacola (FL) News Journal