NCJ Number
118715
Date Published
1989
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This transcript of a CBS news program focuses on various attitudes toward the death penalty for juveniles through interviews with death row inmates who committed their capital crimes as juveniles, victims' families or friends, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and offenders' families.
Abstract
Victims' family members and prosecutors focus on the heinousness and callousness of the crimes juveniles have committed, most with relish and premeditation. They argue that justice and the community's sense of outrage require the possibility of the death penalty for juveniles. Defense attorneys, offenders' families, the death row juveniles, and others argue that juveniles should never be given the death penalty because of their immaturity and potential for rehabilitation. Some consider the capital punishment of juveniles to be barbaric, constituting cruel and unusual punishment. A portion of the CBS program focuses on a juvenile who was given 33 years in prison for robbery and murder instead of the death penalty. He is regularly released from a medium-security prison to talk with high school students about resisting peer pressure to take drugs. He also speaks about his sorrow for taking a life and his commitment to be a productive citizen.