The Virginian-Pilot

October 7, 2004

Editorial

True to Virginia’s roots, the state polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment will cast its lot with the exe­cu­tion­ers when the U. S. Supreme Court takes up the juve­nile death penal­ty on Oct. 13.

Attorney General Jerry Kilgore has joined his coun­ter­parts in Alabama, Delaware, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah in sign­ing a legal brief sup­port­ing reten­tion of the ulti­mate penal­ty for youths whose crimes were com­mit­ted at ages 16 or 17.

Unfortunately, that’s par for the course from the state that car­ried out the first exe­cu­tion in the New World and that is sec­ond only to Texas in exe­cu­tions since death-penal­ty statutes were revised in the 1970s.

This time, how­ev­er, the hang-‘em-high crowd won’t be the only ones rep­re­sent­ing Virginia at a Supreme Court death penal­ty hear­ing.

Also speak­ing loud and clear by their actions will be the Chesapeake jury that gave Lee Boyd Malvo life in prison, rather than death, for his role in the I‑95 sniper killings two years ago.

That deci­sion in one of the most noto­ri­ous crime sprees in American his­to­ry is pow­er­ful tes­ta­ment to evolv­ing com­mu­ni­ty stan­dards on the exe­cu­tion of juve­niles. Despite grue­some tes­ti­mo­ny about Malvo’s role in the cold-blood­ed, ran­dom killings, jurors appeared per­suad­ed that his sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty to adult influ­ence mit­i­gat­ed against death.

That, in fact, is the choice of most of the civ­i­lized world. When it comes to judg­ing those whose crimes were com­mit­ted before they turned 18, it is increas­ing­ly the choice of Americans as well.

An ABC News poll released in December 2003 showed sev­en out of 10 Americans oppose the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers. Thirty-one states now ban the prac­tice. The two most recent addi­tions, South Dakota and Wyoming, joined the list this spring.

Virginia is one of just six states that have car­ried out exe­cu­tions of indi­vid­u­als who were younger than 18 at the time of their offense.

Shamefully, three such deaths puts Virginia sec­ond only to Texas in the cat­e­go­ry.

Virginia politi­cians appear not to have heard, or at least heed­ed, the evolv­ing sci­ence about ado­les­cent brains. Increasingly sophis­ti­cat­ed research affirms what many par­ents have long sus­pect­ed: that full brain devel­op­ment does not occur until the late teens or 20s. Young males often dis­play an impetu­ous­ness and lack of con­trol that is eclipsed by age.

Since 1994, death sen­tences for juve­nile offend­ers have dropped nation­al­ly. An inten­sive, soon-to-be-pub­lished Columbia University study cred­its evolv­ing atti­tudes, rather than fac­tors such as a decreased juve­nile homi­cide arrest rate.

Regrettably, many lead­ing Virginia politi­cians retain their knee-jerk embrace of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in broad form. When the Supreme Court struck down the penal­ty for indi­vid­u­als with men­tal retar­da­tion two years ago, state pol­i­cy-mak­ers cleaved to the los­ing side.

This time, how­ev­er, their voic­es may be drowned out by the action of a con­ser­v­a­tive, tough-on-crime com­mu­ni­ty that came face-to-face with the real­i­ty of juve­nile crime and drew a life-and-death distinction. 

Sources

The Virginian-Pilot