Number: RS21969
Title: Capital Punishment and Juveniles
Authors: Alison M. Smith, American Law Division 
Abstract: In Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. ____ (2005), the United States Supreme Court held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid imposition of the death penalty on offenders who were under the age of 18 at the time of the offense. In deciding Roper, the Court was not writing on a clean slate. In 1988, in Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988), the Court struck down the death penalty for juvenile offenders under the age of 16. The Court last reviewed the issue in 1989, when its decision in Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989) set the minimum eligibility age for the death penalty at 16, finding that there was not a national consensus against the execution of those aged 16 or 17 at the time of the offense. Since 1989, eight states have established a minimum age of 18, raising the total number of states that ban juvenile executions to 30. The Roper Court found that the "evolving standards of decency," which led the Court in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), to ban the execution of mentally retarded people are similar with respect to juveniles. The Roper decision overrules the Court's prior decision in Stanford. The immediate effect of this decision is to end the execution of juveniles throughout the U.S., regardless of state law.
Pages: 6
Date: March 9, 2005