Legislation ban­ning cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for crimes com­mit­ted by those younger than 18 has passed both the South Dakota House and Senate. The bill will now go to Governor Mike Rounds for sig­na­ture into law. Republican Representative Hal Wick of Sioux Falls sup­port­ed the bipar­ti­san mea­sure, stat­ing, ​“I do have con­cerns about heinous crimes, but I don’t think it’s our place to destroy or for­get the sanc­ti­ty of life. Violent respons­es by the state beget more vio­lence. The state must lead by exam­ple. Instead of encour­ag­ing a cul­ture of death by killing crim­i­nals, we must seek pun­ish­ment for crimes that respects the dig­ni­ty of human life and at the same time serves human jus­tice.” Internationally, only Iran, the Congo, and the U.S. allow the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers, and Iran is con­sid­er­ing a nation­al ban of the prac­tice. (Argus Leader, February 25, 2004) Nationally, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and 17 of the 38 states that have the death penal­ty ban the exe­cu­tion of the juve­nile offend­ers. Rounds’ sig­na­ture would make South Dakota the 18th death penal­ty state to aban­don the prac­tice. The U.S. Supreme Court will con­sid­er the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the juve­nile death penal­ty this fall when it hears argu­ments in the case of Roper v. Simmons. See DPIC’s Roper v. Simmons page. See Juvenile Death Penalty.

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