Capital Punishment and Juveniles (CRS Report for Congress)
| Release Date |
March 9, 2005 |
| Report Number |
RS21969 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Alison M. Smith, American Law Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
In Roper v. Simmons , 543 U.S. ____ (2005), the United States Supreme Court held
that the Eighth
and Fourteenth Amendments forbid imposition of the death penalty on offenders who were under
the age of 18 at the time of the offense. In deciding Roper , the Court was not writing
on a clean
slate. In 1988, in Thompson v. Oklahoma , 487 U.S. 815 (1988), the Court struck down
the death
penalty for juvenile offenders under the age of 16. The Court last reviewed the issue in 1989, when
its decision in Stanford v. Kentucky , 492 U.S. 361 (1989) set the minimum eligibility
age for the
death penalty at 16, finding that there was not a national consensus against the execution of those
aged 16 or 17 at the time of the offense. Since 1989, eight states have established a minimum age
of 18, raising the total number of states that ban juvenile executions to 30. The Roper
Court found
that the "evolving standards of decency," which led the Court in Atkins v. Virginia , 536
U.S. 304
(2002), to ban the execution of mentally retarded people are similar with respect to juveniles. The
Roper decision overrules the Court's prior decision in Stanford . The
immediate effect of this
decision is to end the execution of juveniles throughout the U.S., regardless of state law.
