SEPT. 8, 2004
UPDATED MARCH 1, 2005

U.S. SUPREME COURT
Court strikes down juvenile death penalty

In a 5-4 ruling March 1, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the juvenile death penalty is unconstitutional. The ruling bars the execution of killers who committed their crimes under the age of 18. Before the ruling, 19 states permitted juveniles to be executed for murder. The ruling was made in Roper v. Simmons, a Missouri murder case.

In 2002, the court abolished execution of the mentally retarded, saying that a national consensus had developed against it. Later that year, the court split when it declined to review a juvenile death penalty case; four justices urged the court to revisit the issue because they believed national opinions had shifted (See Supreme Court Background).

Nearly a year later, the Missouri Supreme Court set aside a death sentence for Chris Simmons, who killed a woman in 1993 when he was 17. The state court, citing the U.S. court's decision barring executions of the mentally retarded, said a national consensus had also developed against the juvenile death penalty. In January 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the case, and oral arguments were heard Oct. 13.

The juvenile death penalty is an issue packed with moral and ethical questions at a time when youths are committing heinous, high-profile murders and experts are grappling with how to prevent and punish these crimes. Many advocates for abolition of the juvenile death penalty cited new research showing that the adolescent brain hasn't finished developing until age 20. Polls indicate that most Americans - 69 percent in a 2002 Gallup Poll - oppose executing juveniles for murder (See Polls below). The United States is one of only five countries that allow such executions.

Meanwhile, support for the death penalty for adult murderers remains high: 71 percent support it for people convicted of murder, and 48 percent say it is not imposed enough, according to a May 2004 Gallup Poll.

Why it Matters
Religious leaders and organizations have been powerful lobbies on both sides of the death penalty debate. Those against the death penalty say it is their moral obligation to bring the issue of capital punishment to the forefront of the religious community's agenda. They also argue that it is becoming increasingly difficult for the U.S. to maintain its position as the global leader on human rights when it not only still executes people, but juveniles as well. On the other side of the debate, some religious leaders firmly believe the Sixth Commandment is a prohibition against murder and not a prohibition against the death penalty.

Questions for reporters
• 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?
• Are religious leaders and organizations in your community and region speaking out on the issue?

Skip to background

Click the map for interview sources in your state and region

National sources

SUPPORTING THE DEATH PENALTY
• 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. Contact 713-935-9300, voice pager 713-508-6979, cell 281-435-7348, info@jfa.net. Dudley Sharp is death penalty resource director for Justice For All. Contact sharpjfa@aol.com.
• Logos Christian Resources has a religious pro-death penalty web site.
• Michael Rushford is president of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, based in Sacramento, Calif., which supports the death penalty for juveniles over age 16. Contact 916-446-0345, rushford@cjlf.org.

OPPOSING THE DEATH PENALTY
• Mark Chopko, general counsel to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and author of a July 2004 brief by religious groups urging the U.S. Supreme Court to declare the juvenile death penalty unconstitutional, has said that all major religions teach that young people do not have the same moral culpability as adults. Contact through the communications office in Washington, D.C., 202-541-3200.
• Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty is an anti-death penalty web site that includes statements from 32 religious organizations that oppose the death penalty. Contact 215-41-7130, information@deathpenaltyreligious.org.
• Bernardine Dohrn is director of Northwestern University School of Law's Children and Family Justice Center, which runs the Juvenile Death Penalty Initiative. Its aim is to prevent the executions of juvenile offenders on death row in the United States and to end the juvenile death penalty in the 22 states that still execute juvenile offenders. Contact b-dohrn@law.northwestern.edu.
• 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. Joseph T. McLaughlin is the counsel of record for an Ameci Curiae brief submitted in July 2004 on behalf of the American Medical Association, the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Psychiatry & the Law, National Association of Social Workers and its Missouri chapter, and the National Mental Health Association. Contact McLaughlin in New York at 212-832-8300.
• Steven W. Hawkins is executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Contact 202-543-9577, shawkins@ncadp.org.
• Richard Dieter is executive director of 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 202-293-6970.
• James E. Coleman Jr. is a law professor at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and chairs the American Bar Association'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.
• Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn is director of Amnesty International's Program to Abolish the Death Penalty. It opposes the death penalty and says juvenile executions are the next frontier for abolition. Contact her through Jen Corlew, 202-544-0200 ext. 302, jcorlew@aiusa.org.

ACADEMIC SOURCES
• Jeffrey Fagan is a professor of law and public health at Columbia University in New York. He says judges and juries have shown a declining willingness in recent years to sentence teenage criminals to death. Read about a study he co-authored on the subject that will be published this year in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Contact 212-854-2624, jfagan@law.columbia.edu.
• Davison Douglas is a professor of law at the College of William and Mary, Marshall-Wythe School of Law. He wrote "God and the Executioner: The Influence of Western Religion on the Death Penalty" for the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. He noted the difference in attitudes between the pulpit and the pew and suggested that the fate of the death penalty in America will probably be decided in the realm of the secular, not the sacred. Contact 757- 221-3853, dmdoug@wm.edu.
• The Rev. Robert F. Drinan, S.J., is a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. He wrote "Will Religious Teachings and International Law End Capital Punishment?" for the St. Mary's Law Journal. Contact 202-662-9073, drinan@law.georgetown.edu.
• The National District Attorneys Association is an organization for America's prosecutors. The organization, based in Alexandria, Va., does not have a position on the death penalty but does support trying juveniles as adults, depending on the seriousness of their offenses. Contact media relations director Velva M. Walter, 703-519-1689, velva.walter@ndaa-apri.org.
• 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 (Carolina Academic Press, 2003). His paper "The Juvenile Death Penalty Today" gives state-by-state breakdowns. Contact 419-772-2207, v-streib@onu.edu.

Background

POLLS
• PollingReport.com lists recent polls on the death penalty and the juvenile death penalty.
• Read a June 2, 2004, Gallup News Service story about poll that Americans are nearly evenly divided about their opinion on the use of the death penalty in capital murder cases. A May 20, 2002 Gallup Poll found that 69 percent of Americans oppose capital punishment for juvenile offenders. (Scroll down on PollingReport.com's death penalty page.)

ARTICLES
• Read a March 1, 2005 Associated Press story about the Supreme Court ruling.
• A Jan. 4, 2005, New York Times article posted by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty looks at some of the juvenile offenders now on death row and raises questions about the consistency of juries in assessing capital punishment.
• Read a July 20, 2004, Washington Post story about 48 nations, 18 Nobel Peace Prize winners, 28 U.S. religious groups and a host of medical, legal and child advocacy groups who signed briefs asking the Supreme Court to declare that it is unconstitutional to execute people for crimes they committed before turning 18. The American Bar Association has posted the briefs.
• A June 19, 2004, Washington Post article details how jurors' faith played a role in their decision not to sentence D.C.-area sniper Lee Boyd Malvo to death. He was 17 at the time of his crimes.
• Read a Jan. 26, 2004, CNN.com story about the U.S. Supreme Court agreeing to hear arguments on the constitutionality of the juvenile death penalty and a sidebar about which states have and have used juvenile death penalty laws.

U.S. SUPREME COURT AND THE DEATH PENALTY

ROPER v. SIMMONS
• The American Bar Association posted amicus briefs filed in July 2004 in Roper v. Simmons asking that the juvenile death penalty be declared unconstitutional.
• Read the Missouri Supreme Court's Aug. 26, 2003 decision setting aside the death penalty in Chris Simmons' murder conviction.
• The Death Penalty Information Center offers a Roper v. Simmons resource page.

PAST CASES
• Read an Oct. 21, 2002, Associated Press story posted by Beliefnet.com about the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly refusing to consider the constitutionality of a juvenile death penalty case. Read the dissenting opinion, in which U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by three others, cited a developing national consensus against juvenile execution and said the court should reconsider the issue.
• In 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court abolished execution of the mentally retarded, ruling June 20 in Atkins v. Virginia that it was cruel and unusual punishment.
• In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled in Stanford v. Kentucky ruled that executing people who committed crimes at the age of 16 or 17 did not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
• In 1988 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Thompson v. Oklahoma that it was unconstitutional to execute anyone for crimes committed under age 16.
• 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.

ORGANIZATIONS
• Religioustolerance.org offers a snapshot of where mainstream religious denominations stand on the death penalty.
• The American Bar Association, which opposes the death penalty for juvenile offenders, offers a page of resources, a state-by-state breakdown on how each state stands on capital punishment for juvenile offenders. The bar also has a case-by-case look at current juvenile death penalty cases.
• The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty has a campaign to end the juvenile death penalty. The group has this fact sheet on the issue.
• The Death Penalty Information Center offers a variety of state, national and international polls on death penalty issues. The Death Penalty Information Center is a nonprofit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment. The site also has a listing of changes in death penalty laws in each state between 2000 and 2004.
• The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty offers a list of anti-death penalty groups around the nation.
• Justice For All is a pro-death penalty organization that offers a list of other such organizations around the country.
• The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has a section on the death penalty that provides history, polls and views from various religious groups.
• The Clark County, Indiana Prosecuting Attorney's Death Penalty site offers more than 1,000 links to pro- and anti-death penalty sites, as well as historical background, essays, public opinion polls, statistics ad more.
• The Yale School of Law web site has this October 2003 essay that first appeared in the Foreign Service Journal. Written by two career diplomats, the essay posits the theory that the United States' continued use of the death penalty, particularly on juvenile offenders, is negatively affecting American diplomatic efforts around the world.