Death Penalty for Juveniles?

NOVEMBER 4, 2002

DEATH PENALTY
Is the juvenile death penalty dying out?

The federal and state tug-of-war over who will try 17-year-old suspected sniper John Lee Malvo first illustrates society's dilemma over whether to execute kids who kill. It's a debate that, on Oct. 21, the U.S. Supreme Court steered back to state legislatures. Though the court declined to consider abolishing executions of juveniles on a 5-4 vote, the dissenting justices condemned the practice. Justice John Paul Stevens said since the court upheld the death penalty for juvenile killers in 1989, a national consensus against such executions has developed. Is that true?
In recent years, Indiana, Montana and Kansas have banned the execution of people who were under 18 at the time of their crimes. Twenty-two states currently permit execution of juveniles, although only six - Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia - have executed juveniles since 1990, for a total of 18 juvenile executions. Legislation to bar the juvenile death penalty is active in 10 states: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Texas. Nationally, eighty-two convicts are on Death Row for crimes committed as juveniles.

What legislation and case law are emerging in your region? What is the public mood about the age of accountability for murder? Who is winning the battle over executing juvenile killers? Is the juvenile death penalty in its last days or will it remain the ultimate punishment for some young murderers?

Why it matters
Religious leaders and organizations have been powerful lobbies on both sides of the death penalty debate, even if congregation members don't always follow their leaders' teachings. In June the Supreme Court barred executions of mentally retarded people, and observers say it may again take up the question of juvenile murderers.

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National sources

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in your state and region

• The pro-death penalty Justice For All is a victims' rights organization based in Houston, Texas. The organization also maintains Pro-Death Penalty, a resource site that lists information about victims, and murdervictims.com. Dianne Clements is president. 713-935-9300, voice pager 713-508-6979, cell 281-435-7348, info@jfa.net; Dudley Sharp is death penalty resource director, sharpjfa@aol.com.
• Davison Douglas is a professor of law at the College of William and Mary, Marshall-Wythe School of Law. He wrote A History of the Influence of Religious Attitudes on the Use of the Death Penalty. In one essay, he noted the difference in attitudes between the pulpit and the pew, and suggested that the fate of the death penalty in America will likely be decided in the realm of the secular, not the sacred. Contact 757- 221-3853, dmdoug@wm.edu.
• Robert F. Drinan, S.J., is a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. He wrote Can World Religion Eliminate the Death Penalty? Contact 202-662-9073, drinan@law.georgetown.edu.
• Logos Christian Resources has a Religious pro-death penalty website.
• Religious anti-death penalty website, including statements by various religious organizations, Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty. Contact 215-41-7130, information@deathpenaltyreligious.org.
• Religioustolerance.org offers a snapshot of where mainstream religious denominations stand on the death penalty.
• Victor L. Streib is professor of law at Ohio Northern University in Ada. He specializes in violent crimes and the death penalty. His writings on the subject include a chapter on executing women, children and the retarded for the book America's Experiment With Capital Punishment (1998). His comprehensive paper The Juvenile Death Penalty Today gives state-by-state breakdowns. Contact 419-772-2207, v-streib@onu.edu.
• Tonya McClary is national criminal justice representative for the American Friends Service Committee. She is former domestic program director for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Contact 215-241-7130, tmcclary@afsc.org.
• The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty said the Supreme Court's decision means opponents of juvenile executions must refocus their efforts at the state legislative level. Read it here. Contact executive director Steven W. Hawkins, 202-543-9577, shawkins@ncadp.org.
• American University Washington College of Law maintains a clearinghouse of information and links on the juvenile death penalty and summarizes recent news.
• The Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment, tracks recent developments in juvenile death penalty rulings, as well as legislation on the death penalty. Contact executive director Richard Dieter, 202-293-6970.
• The American Bar Association opposes capital punishment for juveniles and tracks developments through its Juvenile Justice Center. James E. Coleman Jr., a law professor at Duke University in Durham, N.C., chairs the ABA's Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project. Contact 919-613-7057, jcoleman@law.duke.edu. Deborah T. Fleischaker directs the project. Contact 202-662-1595, fleischd@staff.abanet.org.
• The National District Attorneys Association, an organization for America's prosecutors, is based in Alexandria, Va. The organization does not have a position on the death penalty but does support trying juveniles as adults, depending on the seriousness of their offenses. Velva M. Walter, media relations director, 703-549-9222, velva.walter@ndaa-apri.org.
• The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, based in Sacramento, Calif., supports the death penalty for juveniles over age 16. President Michael Rushford, 916-446-0345, rushford@cjlf.org.
• Amnesty International opposes the death penalty and says juvenile executions are the next frontier for abolition. Read about it here and here. Regional offices listed here. Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn is director of AIUSA's Program to Abolish the Death Penalty. Contact her through Jen Corlew at 202-544-0200 x302, jcorlew@aiusa.org. AI sponsored an online event Oct. 7-16 on the role of faith communities in abolishing the death penalty.

Background
• Virginia, which allows the death penalty for juveniles, may get to try the sniper suspects first, according to a Nov. 3 New York Times story.
• An Oct. 28 Boston Globe story discusses how different state penalties for juvenile killers will affect proceedings against accused sniper John Lee Malvo, 17.
• Newstrove.com tracks death penalty news.
• A May Gallup poll found that 69 percent of Americans opposed the execution of juveniles. A Houston Chronicle poll this year found that 25 percent support for execution of juveniles.
• Many advocates for abolition of the juvenile death penalty have cited new research showing that the adolescent brain hasn't finished developing until age 20. The American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry, a professional group, joined the case asking the Supreme Court to halt juvenile execution.

SUPREME COURT INFORMATION
• Read about the Supreme Court decision about juvenile executions in an Oct. 22 Associated Press article and an Oct. 22 Detroit Free Press article. Read an Aug. 27 Christian Science Monitor article.
• In a dissenting opinion, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by three others, cited a developing national consensus against juvenile execution in voting to hear the juvenile-execution case Stanford v. Kentucky.
• The Supreme Court ruled in 1988, in Thompson v. Oklahoma, that it was unconstitutional to execute anyone for crimes committed under age 16.
• This year the U.S. Supreme Court abolished execution of the mentally retarded, ruling June 22 in Atkins v. Virginia that it was cruel and unusual punishment.
• U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in "God's Justice and Ours," in the May 2002 First Things, a Catholic journal of religion and public life, that he did not find the death penalty immoral.

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