Juvenile Confinement - Juveniles And The Death Penalty

On March 1, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penalty for juveniles. The ruling found that state laws authorizing capital punishment for those under eighteen years old who commit murder violate the Eighth Amendment's provision against cruel and unusual punishment and are therefore unconstitutional. Juveniles who commit serious crimes can now be sentenced to a maximum of life in prison. The ruling changes the law in twenty-one states that had authorized the death penalty for juvenile offenders and took seventy-two prisoners off of death row. An online version of the ruling is located at http://wid.ap.org/documents/scotus/050301roper.pdf.

Historically, it was rare for a juvenile to be sentenced to death. According to the BJS, in sixteen states allowing the death penalty in 2003, the minimum age authorized for capital punishment was eighteen years. (See Table 7.9.) Those states included California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington. The federal system observed eighteen years as well. However, five states—Florida, Georgia, New Hampshire, North TABLE 7.9
Minimum age authorized for capital punishment, 2003
SOURCE: Thomas P. Bonczar and Tracy L. Snell, "Table 3. Minimum Age Authorized for Capital Punishment, 2003," in Capital Punishment, 2003, Bureau of Justice Statistics, November 2004, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cp03.pdf (accessed April 3, 2005)

Age 16 or less	Age 17	Age 18	None specified
Alabama (16)	Florida	California	Arizona
Arkansas (14)	Georgia	Colorado	Idaho
Delaware (16)	New Hampshire	Cnnecticut	Louisiana
Kentucky (16)	North Carolinaa	Federal system	Montanab
Mississippi (16)c	Texas	Illinois	Pennsylvania
Nevada (16)		Indiana	South Carolina
Oklahoma (16)		Kansas	South Dakotad
Utah (14)e		Maryland
Virginia (14)e		Missourif
Wyoming (16)		Nebraska
		New Jersey
		New Mexico
		New York
		Ohio
		Oregon
		Tennessee
		Washington
Note: Reporting by states reflects interpretations by state attorney generals' offices and may differ from previously reported ages.
a Age required is 17 unless the murderer was incarcerated for murder when a subsequent murder occurred; then the age may be 14.
b Montana law specifies that offenders tried under the capital sexual assault statute be 18 or older. Age may be a mitigating factor for other capital crimes.
c The minimum age defined by statute is 13, but the effective age is 16 based on interpretation of U.S. Supreme Court decisions by the Mississippi Supreme Court.
d Juveniles may be transferred to adult court. Age can be a mitigating factor.
eThe minimum age for transfer to adult court by statute is 14, but the effective age is 16 based on interpretation of U.S. Supreme Court decisions by the state attorney general's office.
f The minimum age defined by statute is 16, but the effective age is 18 based on interpretation of the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by the Missouri Supreme Court.

Carolina, and Texas—had authorized the death penalty at seventeen years. The minimum age for capital punishment was sixteen years or less in thirteen other states. Alabama, Delaware, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Wyoming set sixteen years as the minimum, while Arkansas, Utah, and Virginia used fourteen years. States without specific age limits were Arizona, Idaho, Louisiana, Montana, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and South Dakota.