Arizona Daily Star

JANUARY 29, 2004 

“Executing Young Offenders”
Public sen­ti­ment and state prac­tices are lead­ing the way, and now the Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether crim­i­nals can be exe­cut­ed if they com­mit­ted their crimes when they were 16 and 17 years old.

The court agreed to hear an appeal from the Missouri Supreme Court. That court ruled last year that exe­cut­ing Christopher Simmons, now 27, would amount to a vio­la­tion of the Eighth Amendment’s pro­vi­sion against ​“cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment.” Simmons was 17 when he com­mit­ted a murder.

Deciding the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of exe­cut­ing teen offend­ers is a nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion for the Supreme Court. In 2002, the court ruled that the men­tal­ly retard­ed could not be exe­cut­ed for their crimes.

That deci­sion was based large­ly on pub­lic opin­ion that no longer accept­ed such exe­cu­tions. When the Missouri Supreme Court ruled against the death penal­ty for Simmons, it cit­ed the Supreme Court’s rul­ing on the men­tal­ly retard­ed. The divid­ed court in Missouri vot­ed 4 – 3 and said that a ​“nation­al con­sen­sus” had grown against the exe­cu­tion of teen offenders.

All evi­dence points to the truth of that state­ment. News sto­ries note that the exe­cu­tions are becom­ing increas­ing­ly rare. A total of 38 states allow the death penal­ty, but only 22 of those allow teen offend­ers to be exe­cut­ed. The Washington Post reports that since exe­cu­tions were rein­stat­ed in 1976, 22 juve­nile offend­ers have been exe­cut­ed. Teens whose crimes were com­mit­ted when they were 15 and under can­not be sen­tenced to death.

Anti-cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment advo­cates are lead­ing this push and their agen­da is trans­par­ent — elim­i­na­tion of the death penal­ty. However, elim­i­nat­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for teens and the men­tal­ly retard­ed is a far cry from total elim­i­na­tion of the death penalty.

There is some indi­ca­tion that accep­tance of this case was pushed by the more con­ser­v­a­tive jus­tices on the court who favor the death penal­ty. If so, their votes would con­serve the status quo.

They are not like­ly to be swayed, even by evi­dence that the brains of peo­ple in the 16- and 17-year old age group are still grow­ing and chang­ing. But if ​“evolv­ing stan­dards of decen­cy in a civ­i­lized soci­ety” are to be used to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for those who don’t under­stand the nature of their crimes, then offend­ers aged 16 and 17 should be included.

However, the larg­er issue is that the time has come to start dis­man­tling all cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. As some mem­bers of this court have said before, the death penal­ty does not fit into any notion of a decent and civilized society.

The Supreme Court should strike down the prac­tice of putting to death teen offend­ers. It is a nec­es­sary move toward the inevitable elim­i­na­tion of the death penalty.