US:
Two more states abolish juvenile death penalty
The
governors of two states, South Dakota and Wyoming, each signed legislation
on March 3 raising the minimum age for capital punishment in their states
to 18. In the United States, 31 states and the federal government now
prohibit the execution of juvenile offenders, including the 12 states
that have abolished the death penalty entirely.
At
least nine other states, including Arizona, Kentucky, and Virginia,
are considering raising the minimum age for capital punishment to 18.
Most recently, New Hampshire's Senate on February 19 passed such a bill,
which now goes to the state House of Representatives for consideration.
These steps follow the national trend in recent years. Indiana abolished
the death penalty for juvenile offenders in 2002, as did Montana in
1999.
A
month ago, the US Supreme Court agreed to reconsider the question of
whether executing juvenile offenders violates the Constitution's ban
on "cruel and unusual punishment." In its last decision on
the issue, in 1989, the court held that states may impose capital punishment
on those who were 16 and 17 at the time of their crimes.
Texas
has continued to schedule executions for juvenile offenders even after
the high court announced on January 26 that it intended to review the
practice. But in the past week, Justice Antonin Scalia has granted stays
of execution for Anzel Jones and Edward Capetillo, two of the five juvenile
offenders with execution dates in Texas. The court usually issues such
stays when the outcome of its decision in one case would affect the
validity of the death sentences in other cases.
International
treaties and customary international law forbid capital punishment for
offenders under the age of 18 at the time of the offense for which they
were convicted. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic
of Congo are the only other countries that are known to defy the worldwide
consensus that the death penalty should not be imposed on juvenile offenders.
Four
US Supreme Court justices are already on record as opposing the execution
of those who were under age of 18 at the time of their crimes. In a
dissenting opinion issued in October 2002, Justice John Paul Stevens-joined
by Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer-characterised
the juvenile death penalty as "a relic of the past" and concluded,
"We should put an end to this shameful practice."
Read
together with the court's June 2002 decision in Atkins Vs Virginia,
the recent state developments suggest that the high court may indeed
put an end to the death penalty for juvenile offenders in the next year.
In Atkins, the court found that the execution of offenders with mental
retardation was unconstitutional, reasoning that a national consensus
had developed against it. As Justice Stevens noted in his dissent, the
reasons supporting the court's decision in Atkins "apply with equal
or greater force to the execution of juvenile offenders."
Source:
Human Rights Watch.