Denver Post

January 28, 2004 

Editorial

We view with a glim­mer of hope the U.S. Supreme Court’s announce­ment that it will decide on the death penal­ty for minors on an appeal from Missouri.

That the United States was the only coun­try that car­ried out any exe­cu­tions of juve­nile offend­ers world­wide dur­ing 2002 is a shame­ful stain on the nation that weak­ens any claim to being civ­i­lized in the 21st century.

The case that the U.S. Supreme Court will review involves the appeal of a rul­ing last year by Missouri’s Supreme Court, which held that exe­cut­ing con­vict­ed crim­i­nal Christopher Simmons would be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment because the killer was younger than 18 at the time of the crime.

The Missouri court said it was fol­low­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al rea­son­ing of the U.S. Supreme Court in ban­ning the exe­cu­tion of the men­tal­ly dis­abled in 2002. The U.S. Supreme Court held 6 – 3 that because numer­ous states had passed laws against exe­cut­ing men­tal­ly dis­abled offend­ers, this ren­dered it a cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment and, there­fore, uncon­sti­tu­tion­al under the Eighth Amendment.

The nation’s high­est court last addressed the death penal­ty for juve­niles in 1988 and 1989, rul­ing it out for offend­ers under 16 when their crimes were com­mit­ted but allow­ing it for those 16 and 17. But there have been changes since then — of the 38 states that have a death penal­ty, 16 don’t allow it for minors. That’s five more than in 1989. Also, 12 states have no death penal­ty at all for either minors or adults, mean­ing that minors can’t be put to death in 28 of the 50 states.

Thirty states had abol­ished the ulti­mate sanc­tion for the men­tal­ly dis­abled when the court ruled it out in its 2002 decision.

As of last fall, there were 74 juve­nile killers on death row in the U.S.

Opponents of exe­cut­ing killers under 18 say that like the men­tal­ly dis­abled, they might be respon­si­ble for their actions but haven’t the emo­tion­al and intel­lec­tu­al matu­ri­ty to be cul­pa­ble enough to be put to death. They cite recent research that indi­cates brain devel­op­ment is still ongo­ing dur­ing thyears, The Washington Post reported.

It is no badge of hon­or that the United States is third among the nations of the world in exe­cut­ing crim­i­nals. Only China and Iran put more peo­ple to death, accord­ing to Amnesty International. In 2002, China had 1,060 exe­cu­tions; Iran, 133; and the U.S., 71. Since the death penal­ty was rein­sti­tut­ed in 1976, 22 of the 887 peo­ple exe­cut­ed were minors when they com­mit­ted their offens­es. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, Texas leads with 13 juve­nile offenders executed.

The Post tra­di­tion­al­ly has opposed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, and it is our hope that the jus­tices see the issue of exe­cut­ing teen offend­ers in a new light and abol­ish this odious practice.

Sources

Denver Post