5 REASONS Why the Juvenile Death Penalty is wrong

2. National Consensus Against the Execution of Juvenile Offenders
Thirty-one states and the federal government prohibit the execution of juvenile offenders. Of the 19 states that permit juvenile offender executions, only 12 have juveniles on death row, and only seven have used the punishment. A growing number of states are considering legislation to ban the practice. Seven out of 10 Americans oppose the death penalty for juvenile offenders. Nearly every major religious denomination, children's group, and legal and medical association oppose the practice.

• The Governors of South Dakota and Wyoming signed bills into law banning the juvenile death penalty on March 3, 2004, bringing the total number of states that ban executing juvenile offenders to 31.
  
• A similar bill passed the New Hampshire Senate and House, but Governor Craig Benson vetoed the bill on May 10, 2003 despite the strong legislative support in favor of it.
  
• The Republican-controlled Florida Senate voted by a significant margin of 26 to12 to ban the practice of executing juveniles. The bill made it to the House floor with strong Republican and Democratic support, but the legislative session expired before it could be considered for a vote.

3. Juries Are Less Willing to Put Young Offenders to Death
In the 1990s, juries sentenced more than 10 juveniles to death each year. In 2003, only two minors were sentenced to death. The annual death-sentencing rate for juveniles has been in decline for four years and is now at its lowest point in 14 years. The jury's recommendation for a life sentence instead of a death sentence in the Lee Malvo case was a clear signal that the public is reluctant to condemn juvenile offenders to death, even for the most horrendous crimes.

4. Doctors Oppose the Death Penalty for Juvenile Offenders
Medical experts, including doctors, pediatricians, psychiatrists, and neuroscientists, assert that adolescents are not adults - physically, mentally or emotionally. Recent studies have shown that the parts of the brain that govern judgment, reasoning, and impulse control are not fully developed until the early twenties. Our knowledge that children are different than adults has been further confirmed by rapidly advancing technology in brain development research. Through magnetic resonance imaging, scientists have learned that human brains continue developing until at least the early 20's. The last part of the brain to develop, the pre-frontal cortex, governs judgment, reasoning and impulse control. This means that while adolescents may be capable in other areas, they cannot reason or control their behavior as well as adults and should, therefore, not be held to the same level of culpability.

5. World Consensus Bans the Death Penalty
The United States is one of the few nations in the world that continues to carry out the execution of juvenile offenders. Furthermore, only two countries - the United States and Somalia - have not ratified the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states "international law clearly prohibits the juvenile death penalty." Since 2000, only five countries have reportedly executed juvenile offenders: Congo, Iran, Pakistan, China, and the United States. However, each of these other nations has either imposed this punishment in violation of their own laws or has indicated that it is changing its law regarding capital punishment for juvenile offenders. Thus, the United States virtually stands alone in continuing this barbaric practice. Several international treaties prohibit the juvenile death penalty, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the American Convention on Human Rights. In 2002, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ruled in Domingues v. Nevada that executing those who committed crimes while under the age of 18 is a violation of a jus cogens under international law making it akin to genocide, slavery and apartheid.

CONCLUSION
The juvenile death penalty speaks to how we treat our children. It perpetuates the notion that children are expendable and hopeless. Executing juvenile offenders necessarily categorizes them as the "worst of the worst" offenders with no hope for rehabilitation. This conclusion is cynical and untrue. Juveniles are the most likely to be capable of rehabilitation. Given their emotional immaturity and lessened culpability, they are by definition not the "worst of the worst."

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES