Juvenile Death Penalty Today: Death Sentences and Executions for Juvenile Crimes, January 1, 1973 - December 31, 2000

• NCJ Number: 192924
• Author(s): Victor L. Streib
• Date Published: 2001
• Length: 30 pages
• Sale Source: Ohio Northern University
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Statistics
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This report is a compilation of data and information on the death penalty for juvenile offenders.

Abstract

This report contains information on death sentences and executions for juvenile crimes from January 1973–December 2000. The report includes information on the historical background of juvenile executions, the legal context of the American juvenile death penalty, the juvenile death penalty in other countries, death sentences imposed in the United States from 1973 to 2001, current death row inmates under juvenile death sentences, and the rationale for the death penalty for juveniles. Highlights of the report include: four juvenile offenders were executed in 2000, making a total of 17 in the modern death penalty era (1973-present); Antonio Richardson, a mentally retarded offender who was 16 at the time of his crime, was scheduled for execution in Missouri on March 7, 2001; over half of the recent executions of juveniles offenders occurred in Texas, with very few other States actively involved in this practice; every other death penalty nation in the world has joined international agreements prohibiting the execution of juvenile offenders, with only the United States refusing to abandon the juvenile death penalty; the number of juvenile offenders sentenced to death each year was 10, despite wide fluctuations in the number of juvenile offenders arrested for murder each year; preliminary information shows that the death sentencing rate for juvenile offenders may be declining, with the six death sentences for 2000 being the lowest in the decade; a total of 200 juvenile death sentences have been imposed since 1973, less than 3 percent of the 7,031 death sentences for offenders of all ages; half of all 200 recent American juvenile sentences have in three states: Texas (50), Florida (30), and Alabama (21); a total of 73 juvenile offenders remain under death sentences at the end of 2000, 26 (36 percent) of which are in Texas; concern over the death penalty for juvenile offenders appears to be increasing, with considerable attention from international human rights’ organizations and with the release of a major report from the United States Department of Justice. Tables and appendices