U.S. Supreme Court to Review Constitutionality of Juvenile Death Penalty

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether the execution of those who were under the age of 18 at the time of their crime violates the Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment." The Court will likely hear arguments in the case of Roper v. Simmons , No. 03-633, this coming fall. The Justices have not visited this issue since 1989 and will likely decide whether there is now a national consensus against the practice of executing juvenile offenders. The Justices used a similar "evolving standards of decency" test when they ruled to forbid the execution of offenders with mental retardation in 2002. The United States is the only country in the world in which the execution of juvenile offenders is officially sanctioned and one of the very few nations that has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child that forbids the practice. Within the U.S., only three states (Texas, Virginia, and Oklahoma) have executed a juvenile offender during the past ten years, with Texas carrying out 13 of the 22 such executions in the U.S. since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. There are 73 juvenile offenders on death row in America. Only two juvenile offenders received death sentences in 2003, the fewest in 15 years. (New York Times, January 27, 2004) See Juvenile Death Penalty. Note: There are two excellent sources for the number of juveniles on death row: the periodic reports of Prof. Victor Streib, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's "Death Row, USA." Statistics from both sources are available on DPIC's Web site. The sources differ slightly in their totals because Death Row USA continues to count defendants whose death sentences have been overturned but where the resolution of the case may not be final.