Washington Post

February 18, 2004

Editorial

THE SUPREME COURT has announced that it will review the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the death penal­ty for peo­ple who were chil­dren when they com­mit­ted their crimes. But don’t expect Texas to stop exe­cut­ing juve­nile offend­ers while the court does so. The Lone Star State has sched­uled, through the end of June, the exe­cu­tions of four con­victs for crimes com­mit­ted while they were still under­age. Unless the courts step in and stop these exe­cu­tions, Texas could end up killing peo­ple only to find out lat­er that those exe­cu­tions vio­lat­ed the Constitution.

It should not take a court order to force the state to delay these exe­cu­tions until it knows whether they are legal. But Texas, in its unri­valed enthu­si­asm for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, sees few cor­ners that it can­not cut to get con­victs to the death cham­ber quick­ly. Texas has exe­cut­ed more than half the total num­ber of juve­nile offend­ers put to death in this coun­try since cap­i­tal pun­ish­men­t’s rein­state­ment. And offi­cials appar­ent­ly see no rea­son to stop now that the high court may be hav­ing sec­ond thoughts about its deci­sion years ago to uphold the prac­tice. As Harris County District Attorney Charles A. ​“Chuck” Rosenthal Jr. put it to the Houston Chronicle, the Supreme Court’s deci­sion to hear the case ​“does­n’t change any­thing.” He added, ​“Until a court tells me dif­fer­ent­ly, the exe­cu­tions are still on.” It’s time for the courts to tell Texas differently.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

Sources

Washington Post