Death Penalty For Juveniles

One of the most controversial questions in the juvenile justice system today is, "Should the death penalty be applied to juveniles?”. A lot of people think that the death penalty for juveniles is cruel and unusual punishment and should only be used for adults. The crimes that juveniles commit are as dangerous and as violent as adult crimes. People argue that the adolescent brain does not mature until the late teens or early twenties, and that death penalty should not be the resolution. Some studies show that childhood abuse or neglect can causes the child to commit crimes when they grow to adulthood. Debate about the use of the death penalty for juveniles has grown more intense because of the crimes they are

The U.S. is part of only a handful of countries that allow the execution of juvenile offenders. Currently, 38 states authorize the death penalty; 23 of these permit the execution of offenders who committed capital offenses prior to their 18th birthdays. Victor

While kids are growing up and learning new things so are their brains. Many studies show that a person’s brain stops growing until they get to the age of 25. This has led to many controversies on whether a child or teen actually knows what’s right and wrong, so when people say “they’re kids, they don’t know any better,” it is technically true, but one also has to teach them what’s right and wrong, so there shouldn’t be any excuse. Throughout time, we’ve come across many teenagers doing ridiculous things, but taking a life shouldn’t be categorized as something so small. Some kids kill on purpose, if they do something that a grown person does, they should be treated as an adult in the court of law.

The big day was March 1st, 2005. The verdict was reached and the decisions were made in the Rehnquist Court. The Chief Justice William Rehnquist ruled against Simmons, the defendant. Being a strict constructionist, or one that strictly adheres to the Constitution, this decision was consistent with his beliefs because nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the execution of minors is a cruel or unusual punishment. He reasoned that it was justified based on the defendant’s actions. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is also a strict constructionist, believing in loyalty to the original Constitution and also in judicial restraint, where she tends to support previous judicial rulings. In this case, she was somewhat consistent, since she voted against Simmons as well and voted to uphold the previous ruling (Stanford v. Kentucky), which ruled that the death sentence of minors was permissible. In fact, she even responded to the argument that many international laws have denounced execution of minors and death penalty in general by stating that international law should have no relevance on the supreme law of the United

Juveniles should not receive severe adult sentences for the murders they commit due to their underdeveloped prefrontal cortex not allowing them to fully process decisions and consequences at a young age. In fact, the prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain where decision making originates and does not fully develop until the age of 25. Furthermore, sentencing a juvenile as an adult while they are at an impulsive age and subject to peer pressure is resulting to cruel and unusual punishment as defined in the eighth amendment of the United States Bill of Rights. Eventually, imposing an adult verdict over a juvenile would inhibit a proper rehabilitation for the convicted juvenile. Hence, it is recommended that states that currently have life without parole or the death penalty laws, ratify a new law for juvenile convicts for proper sentencing and rehabilitation.

America is again divided by something that we need a solution for right away. Today, it is between the people who believe mandatory life in prison for juveniles should be abolished and those who believe the opposite. If a teenager committed murder and any other heinous act they indeed should be sentenced to life. We cannot let people get away with that. They took the life of another, so they should see how it feels. There are many reasons why you should believe juvenile life sentences should still be legal such as the effect it has on the victims families, the accountability these teens should have, and just how ludicrous any other counter argument can be.

As in any controversial issue, there are people that support the juvenile death penalty. One of the reasons they are pro death is because it could possibly discourage other juveniles from committing crimes (“Death Penalty for Juveniles Pros and Cons” 3). The idea is that if other juveniles have the knowledge that they could possibly be sentenced to death for committing a very serious crime, then it might stop the others from actually committing a serious crime (3). Between the years 1642 to 2000, there have been around 361 people sentenced and killed because of the crimes that they have committed when they

The Supreme Court ruled that adolescent committed a murder cannot be sentenced to life in prison, because it violated the eighth amendment’s banning of cruel and unusual punishment. This ruling supports the claim that a punishment as such affects the juveniles that are imprisoned mentally and emotionally. Teenagers that committed a murder should not be sentenced with imprisonment to life because, this adolescent are able to be rehabilitated with proper family support.

As of 1987, 37 states in the US allowed the use of the death penalty, and 27 of those states allowed the execution of minors under the age of eighteen. The state of Indiana, for example, had a minimum execution age of ten. About a dozen states had no declared age limit, and only six states out of the original 37 had adopted eighteen as the minimum age (Times Wire Services). At the time of Thompson v Oklahoma, the state of Oklahoma had a juvenile rehabilitation system that permitted the execution of minors for murder; they believed that despite the fact that they were children or adolescents, they were perfectly aware of the wrongness of their actions and had no hope of being rehabilitated (Cengage Learning). Approximately 20,000 individuals have been legally executed in the United States in the past 350 years, but the controversy surrounding the death penalty has almost always existed (Wilson). In the era of Thompson v Oklahoma, fifteen-year-olds had few rights. They could be tried as adults and given the death penalty, but could not drive, vote, drink alcohol, get married, buy drugs, sit on a jury, or gamble (Cengage Learning). Furthermore, time spent on death row can be from six to over twenty years, so many criminals convicted as juveniles are not executed until they are adults, after essentially growing up in prison and potentially undergoing massive changes in character (Wilson). In addition, the 8th Amendment to the Constitution reads: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” ("8th Amendment”). Execution has been viewed as a cruel and unusual punishment by many for years. In the very beginning, when the Constitution was written, the Framers defined “cruel and unusual punishment” as something blatantly

In the United Sates, the first juvenile death penalty recorded occurred in 1642 of a minor under the age of 18 and the youngest person ever given the death penalty was ten-year old James Arcene in 1885 for robbery and murder (Strater, 1994-1995). By 1994 there were only 9 states, among which were New Jersey, Kansas, and Maryland, that prohibited the death penalties for juveniles. In 2003 the number of states permitting capital punishment declined to 21, a number of them allowing this punishment to those as young as 16 (Steinberg & Scott, 2003). Since the days of the first juvenile execution approximately 362 more juveniles have been

An argument that’s been going around for years now is whether young teens should be sentenced to prison for life based on the crimes they have committed. According to author Gail Garinger who wrote the article “Juveniles Don’t Deserve Life Sentences” strongly disagrees that they shouldn’t be sentenced for life because of their age and how they are not mature enough to understand their actions. However, Jennifer Jenkins, the author of “On Punishment and Teen Killers” strongly disagrees with the outcome of teen killers not being put behind bars for life for what they have committed. Therefore I, on the other hand agree with Jennifer Jenkins. Nobody, no matter how old you are shouldn’t get away with taking someone else’s life.

As adolescents, they are developmentally more malleable than adults. In analyzing the 2005 Supreme Court judgement that declared death penalties for juveniles unconstitutional, former juvenile court judge Gail Garinger states, “[Juveniles] are less mature, more vulnerable to peer pressure, cannot escape from dangerous environments, and their characters are still in formation” (Garinger). It is due to their unformed characters that they cannot be placed in prison for the remainder of their lives with the belief that they will never change, always posing a risk to society. They are still prone to influence and change and, as such, should not be sentenced to have the remainder of their lives in a prison with no possibility of a redeemed future. The goal of a prison should not be to detain and subject their inmates to misery forever, but to keep them until their sentence ends, determine if they are fit to return to society with examinations and parole, and allow the inmates a second

On February 2009 an 11 year old, Jordan Brown, murdered his soon to be stepmom and her fetus. Jordan was sentenced to an adult punishment, life in prison with no parole. In prison children collect bad habits and get negative affects. The minors mind is not fully developed therefore it is not entirely the minors fault. Juveniles should not be punished as adults for violent crimes.

Furthermore, since adolescents brains are not fully developed, they can not control their actions. It’s not right to sentence them to life especially at such a young age, when most adolescents are starting to

I think that the criminal justice system should have different penalties and treatments for juveniles as opposed to adults. I think that responding to juvenile offending is a unique policy and practice challenge. According to most statistics, a substantial proportion of crime is perpetrated by juveniles. However, I think, for the most time, many juveniles will ‘grow out’ of offending and become law-abiding citizens as they mature. In other words, I think communities understand, or should understand, that the younger a person is, the more likely it is that they can change. Most importantly, we should realize that juveniles do not have the level of maturity, thought process, decision-making, experience, or wisdom as presumably adults should