News and Record

October 18, 2004

Editorial

The U.S. Supreme Court has heard argu­ments in a Missouri case that will decide whether inmates on America’s death rows can be exe­cut­ed if they com­mit­ted mur­der at age 16 or 17. The court already for­bids the exe­cu­tion of peo­ple younger than 15.

The court’s deci­sion affects five North Carolina pris­on­ers, all of whom are adults now but who were 17 when they com­mit­ted mur­ders. N.C. law for­bids the exe­cu­tion of 16-year-olds. Yet it per­mits the exe­cu­tion of those who were 17 when they mur­dered.

We oppose the death penal­ty because we believe that it is admin­is­tered arbi­trar­i­ly. That view has been val­i­dat­ed in recent years with the release of more than 100 death-row inmates who were wrong­ly con­vict­ed.

The case before the Supreme Court could, depend­ing on the out­come, restrict cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment by for­bid­ding the exe­cu­tion of a pris­on­er who was younger than 18 when he killed. It involves Christopher Simmons, who com­mit­ted mur­der in 1993 when he was 17. Last year, in a 4 – 2 deci­sion, the Missouri Supreme Court com­mut­ed Simmons’ sen­tence to life with­out parole. The state of Missouri appealed the deci­sion to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Simmons’ lawyers are mak­ing the same argu­ment before the U.S. Supreme Court that they used in Missouri: name­ly, that sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies show a teenager’s brain is not ful­ly devel­oped until he or she reach­es their ear­ly 20s.

The under­de­vel­oped por­tion makes teenagers more prone to impul­sive behav­ior and peer pres­sure, said Seth P. Waxman, Simmons’ attor­ney. Waxman drew an anal­o­gy between Simmons’ case and a 2002 Supreme Court rul­ing that banned the exe­cu­tion of mod­er­ate­ly retard­ed inmates.

He sug­gest­ed that if a brain defi­cien­cy pre­vent­ed the men­tal­ly retard­ed from being exe­cut­ed, the same stan­dard should apply to teenagers.

As pure sci­ence, the valid­i­ty of that point is debat­able. But many rights, priv­i­leges and oblig­a­tions in this coun­try are gov­erned by age and based on the obvi­ous premise that the matu­ri­ty and judg­ment of youths does not typ­i­cal­ly match the judg­ment of adults.

The court is often deeply divid­ed on death penal­ty cas­es. John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer already oppose juve­nile exe­cu­tions. Chief Justice Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas sup­port the death penal­ty. Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy are the swing votes. Justice Kennedy sound­ed espe­cial­ly skep­ti­cal.

Ever since states were allowed to rein­state cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1976, the courts have heard end­less cas­es deter­min­ing who can be exe­cut­ed. Executions ought to be abol­ished alto­geth­er. Until then, how­ev­er, the court should for­bid exe­cu­tions of those who were juve­niles when they com­mit­ted their crimes.

Sources

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