GateHouse Media
December 28, 2018
More than half of all Americans support the death penalty,
according to a Gallup poll conducted last fall. As 2018 comes to a close, the
statistics don’t live up to the polling, but they also do not tell the whole
story.
This year, there were 25 men executed in the United States.
That is two more executions than last year and 73 less than the 1999 high-water
mark of the modern era of the death penalty.
This year’s executions were carried out in only eight
states, primarily in the south. Texas again led the nation with 13 executions,
next was Tennessee with three. No other state had more than two executions.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a
non-profit advocacy group, “the prolonged decline in new death sentences in the
United States reached new historic lows in 2018.”
The 42 new death sentences imposed this year mark the fourth
straight year with fewer than 50 new death sentences.
In 2018, Washington became the 20th state to abolish the
death penalty and even Pope Francis jumped into the fray. The pope revised the
position of the Catholic Church, formally declaring the death penalty “an
attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
Regardless of the future of the death penalty in America,
the ultimate punishment has left its mark on the entire criminal justice
system. During the 1990s when violent crime was on the rise and states were
churning out executions - juvenile offenders were incurring the wrath of lawmakers
across the country.
State after state made it easier to try juveniles as adults,
made it easier to throw juveniles in adult prison and made it common place to
hand out longer and more draconian sentences. For instance, in 1995
Pennsylvania’s newly-elected governor, Tom Ridge, called a special legislative
session on crime. The result was a change in charging juveniles as adults -
resulting, in part, in Pennsylvania having more than 500 juveniles serving life
without parole, more than any other state in the union.
Then in 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the execution
of all persons under the age of 18. The Court found that executing juveniles
violated the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The High
Court did not stop there. Justice Anthony Kennedy suggested that the juvenile
brain is not fully developed at age 16 or 17 and, in fact, may not be fully
developed until the early 20′s. “The qualities that distinguish juveniles from
adults do not disappear when an individual turns 18,” wrote Kennedy.
Since then, the Court has also ruled that a juvenile can’t
be sentenced to life without parole for a non-homicide offense, or to mandatory
life without parole. However, the Supreme Court has never extended those
protections beyond the age of 18.
No other decision of the U.S. Supreme Court has had more
impact on modern juvenile jurisprudence than the High Court’s decision banning
the execution of juvenile offenders. The reasoning behind that decision has
started to creep beyond the acts of juveniles and into the realm of adult
criminal justice.
Last year, a Kentucky court found that it was
unconstitutional to sentence to death those who were younger than 21 at the
time of their offense. Earlier this year, a federal court in Connecticut found
that a man, who had been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of
parole for murders committed at age 18, should be resentenced. The court ruled
that “the hallmark characteristics of juveniles that make them less culpable
also apply to 18-year-olds.”
The impact of the death penalty is undeniable - regardless
of one’s opinion about its propriety.
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & Ge orge P.C. His book The Executioner’s Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & Ge
To visit the column CLICK HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment