JUVENILES AND DEATH PENALTY

Juveniles and Death Penalty

Juveniles and Death Penalty

Introduction

The juvenile death penalty is the enforcement of capital punishment upon offenders who were under age eighteen when they committed the crime. Whether youths should be treated the same as adults for purposes of punishment by death is a very controversial issue. Juveniles have been treated differently from adults since the early common law period. The law early on recognized that juveniles were not as mentally or emotionally developed as adults and thus should be judged differently. This led to the development of then parens patriae doctrine, in which the state was seen as a quasi-parent charged with protecting children as well as holding them accountable for their actions. It also led to the development of the infancy defense, which held that youths under age fourteen were presumed incompetent and thus not criminally liable for their misdeeds (Elster, 2005). This differential treatment of juveniles and the focus on their rehabilitation rather than punishment reached its zenith with the creation of the juvenile court system in the early part of the twentieth century.

Proponents and Opponents Argument

Juveniles are generally more impressionable, this is why opponents argue that they are more likely to be negatively affected by imprisonment in facilities for adults than adults are. Once incarcerated, juveniles are more likely than adults to be physically victimized and psychologically damaged, leading to a greater likelihood of criminal activity in the future, critics say. Tougher legal treatment also affects certain juveniles more than others, opponents say. In particular, they argue that minorities in the legal system have been shown to receive disproportionately harsh treatment. Treating underage offenders as adults exacerbates conditions of inequality, critics say, noting that minority offenders are far more likely to be tried as adults than white offenders. Proponents of adult treatment for juvenile offenders, on the other hand, say that the juvenile justice system is too lenient to effectively deal with underage crime. Only by imposing significant penalties for criminal behavior can the justice system hope to deter youthful offenders, they argue. Violent crimes call for a proportionate response, regardless of the age of the perpetrator, they maintain.

The rate at which juvenile death sentences have been handed out has remained constant at about 2 percent of all death penalty sentences. This rate has remained constant in the face of both increases and decreases in juvenile violence and homicide rates, which suggests its imposition is not related to the incidence of homicide. More than two-thirds of the juveniles executed have been African American. This suggests race may play a factor in the sentencing decision, a charge frequently leveled at the death penalty in adult criminal cases as well. Of the 139 juvenile death sentences that have been resolved since 1976 (either by reversal or execution), 118, or 85 percent, have been reversed on appeal (Henningfeld, 2006). This suggests the juvenile death penalty is often improperly imposed. All these issues raise serious questions about the legal implications involved in juvenile death penalty.

There now exists a clear demarcation regarding who may be executed (sixteen and older at the ...