Legislators should exclude juveniles from death penalty

 

On June 20 the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for the mentally retarded; on June 24 they went further and overturned 150 death sentences in five states because the sentence was imposed by a judge rather than a jury.  This signals some progress for those of us who oppose the death penalty in general.  In our own state, a special legislative subcommittee studying the death penalty followed the U.S. Supreme Court=s decision and agreed that this ultimate penalty should not be used against the mentally retarded. Yet this subcommittee rejected a proposal to abolish executing juvenile offenders. (APanel opposes execution ban for juveniles,@ Las Vegas Review-Journal, June 15, 2002).   I wonder what kind of logic and what kind of science the Nevada legislators used to arrive at their decision?  Why abolish it for one group (the mentally retarded) and not for another group (juveniles)?  If you are a certain age and above a certain IQ level, then I guess it is ok for the state to kill you if you have also killed.

The U. S. accounts for the majority of known juvenile offender executions (ten since 1990).  More than 72 countries that retain the death penalty in law have abolished it for juvenile offenders.  The United States stands along with five other countries in which such executions are reported to have been carried out in recent years.  Thus we join such bastions of freedom and democracy as  Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Nigeria.  In other words, the United States stands alone among western, democratic nations that impose the death penalty to those who commit their crimes as juveniles.  Should we be proud of this?  I think not.

The imposition of the death penalty on juveniles is not without international criticism.  Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden have voiced their objection of this continued practice across the United States.  The United Nations Human Rights Committee contends that the U.S. Aundermines the effective implementation of the Covenant [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights] and tends to weaken respect for the obligations of the State parties.@

In 1998, the case of Michael Domingues was brought before the Nevada Supreme Court.  Michael Domingues was convicted in 1994 for a crime he committed when he was 16 years old, the murder of his next door neighbor and her four year old son in their home.  His case was appealed based on the violation of international law and the U.S. ratification of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).  The Nevada Supreme Court voted that the death sentence was legal and binding.   The justices stated that Amany of our sister jurisdictions have laws authorizing the death penalty for criminal offenders under the age of eighteen and such laws have withstood Constitutional scrutiny.@    The Court reached this conclusion by looking at other U.S. states rather than examining international opinion or practice. They also ignored the fact that in 1998, 14 states and two federal jurisdictions (civilian and military) have legislation that prohibits the death penalty for any juvenile offender.  Yet, there is a long-standing principal of international jurisprudence that the nation state is the subject of international law, which the United States continues to ignore.

According to United Nations, the U.S. policy on executing juvenile offenders violates international laws and treaties signed or ratified by the United States.  In 1955, the United States ratified Article 68 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), Relative to the Protection of Civilian Person in Time of War, which states A. . . the death penalty may not be pronounced on a protected person who was under 18 years of age at the time of the offense.@  Thus, for five decades, the U.S. has protected all civilian youthful offenders in protected countries from the death penalty during war or armed conflict.  Yet, U.S. policies and practices refuses to protect youth in this country during peace.  The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) was signed by the U.S. in 1977 and ratified in 1992.  The provisions in this Covenant include that youth should be separated from incarcerated adults and receive appropriate treatment (Article 10), and the death penalty (Article 6) must not be imposed for crimes committed by juvenile offenders.  The U.S. submission to the Human Rights Committee examining compliance with ICCPR states that the U.S. reserves the right to treat juveniles as adults in exceptional circumstances, including the right to imprison children with adults and imposing the death penalty. These exceptional circumstances include juveniles as young as 13 and 14 years old being housed with adults.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has also found that the United States violates international law, as did the U.N. Special Rapporteuer, which Aemphasizes that international law clearly indicates a prohibition of imposing the death sentence on juvenile offenders.  Therefore, it is not only the execution of a juvenile offender which constitutes a violation of international law, but also the imposition of a sentence of death on a juvenile offender by itself.@  Nevertheless, in 1998 the Republican National Committee Chairperson called on the U.S. administration to publicly renounce this report and ensure that none of the U.S. debts to the U.N. were paid until the report was formally withdrawn and apologized for.

Further, the U. S. resists international human rights commitments for children in the failure to ratify the Convention of the Rights of the Children (CRC).  A total of 192 countries have ratified the convention, while two countries have not B United States and Somalia.  Article 6 of the convention states that all children must be guaranteed the right to survival, life and development.  Article 3 refers that the Abest interests of the child@ should be a primary consideration.  These laws apply to all juveniles, including those who are accused or convicted of violating the law.