NCJ Number
104390
Journal
Indiana Law Journal Volume: 61 Issue: 4 Dated: (1985-1986) Pages: 757-791
Date Published
1986
Length
35 pages
Annotation
Due to the human dignity mandates of the eighth amendment, the death penalty is always inappropriate for minors; a minor's age should not just be one among many mitigating factors in considering imposition of the death penalty.
Abstract
Society must always regard juvenile offenders as less responsible for their crimes than adults, so that the death penalty is always disproportionately cruel when minors are involved. Since minors are less responsible for their crimes and hence, less morally blameworthy, the retributive goal of the death penalty is not served by putting minors to death, either as a means for society to express its moral outrage or as a means of meting out just desserts for juvenile murderers. Because the crimes of minors are typically not the result of premediation and deliberation and because the likelihood of the death penalty for a juvenile is remote even where permitted, capital punishment for juveniles cannot have a sufficiently deterrent effect to be constitutional. Mandating youth as one among many mitigating factors, or even as a primary mitigating factor, is not sufficient to ensure that juveniles will not receive the death penalty. When the U.S. Supreme Court next considers the death penalty for a juvenile, it should rule that the death penalty is unconstitutional for all juveniles. 208 footnotes.